Thank you! Shapes are my go-to default when I'm stuck. It's also a great way to draw connections between characters, if they say have to be part of the same in-group. Of course, it's easier when your characters are super stylized, but I do also try to refer to them when working with less cartoony stuff (though I'm a lot less good at that... I don't do subtle well.)
Interestingly enough, I was inspired by games with a really stylized protagonist, like Child of Light, Journey or GRIS. I played competitive FPSs for a while and early on I was thinking of pitching the story idea to a programmer friend of mine to see if he wanted to make it into a platformer/puzzle game, but I decided that ultimately I didn't know enough about platformer/puzzle games to write a good story (nor did I feel like re-learning to rig and animate, since I would've had to be the main artist for the project, which with my current ~health adventures~ would've taken forever...).
I guess we both have reasons to be envious of people who can do something we can't, haha. I think that's pretty normal. This character for example is supposed to design and wear fancy dresses, and I'll like, draw a triangle and be like "uh, what else goes on a dress??" Or I'll add some ~fancy~ design element and it looks like she's farting, lol.
Yeah, mistakes do look more natural, and I guess more creative since it wasn't something that came from wherever you were stuck in.
