How to Create a Style

When you look at images other people have drawn, you can sometimes recognize a picture by their style.
Look at this image.

Can you tell me who it is? I sure hope you can. In case you can't, this is younger Simba, from the movie Lion King. Note the style of the art. Study it really closely, and then look at this picture of younger Kovu, from the second movie

See the similarities? If not, take a real close look at the ears, eyebrows, jaws, and eyes.
Now do you see them?
Even if you couldn't, you could recognize these as Disney characters from the movie Lion King. Unless of course you've never seen any of the movies, in which case I suggest you go do right away, as it is an amazing movie.

The artists for Lion King developed a style, a pattern for their characters. That's what the topic of this post is today.
When you draw, do you do something specific to mark it as your drawing?? And I don't mean signing it. I mean drawing hands a certain way, or maybe doing the face in a certain design. If you are having trouble coming up with your own way of drawing, draw up a quick picture in the same design as the original, then look at the places you feel could use some improvement. Maybe you didn't draw the eyes just so, or maybe the hands, paws, talons, or wings turned out horribly. Draw the picture again, but leave out the parts where you messed up. Unless of course the entire image was ruined by some accident, in which case simply just re-draw it completely before doing this step.

Now, in the parts you left out, take a new piece of paper, and experiment drawing them in different ways until you come up with a way you like. When you are positive you can draw the way repetitively, draw it onto your image.  Repeat this step, until your picture is once again complete. And hey...what do you know? You've created a style for those parts!

I once had issues drawing feet, they were just super hard for me! Then I started drawing them a more cartoon-like way, shorter and more round, and suddenly they looked....right.

So keep experimenting with your images, until they feel right to you.

In what ways have you improved your art?
Do you have a specific style you can show off?
I'd love to see it!