Character development ish

I'm hoping to make a puppet over summer as well. But i want to get something different to everything else i've done so far. Which has been attempting to stick to human proportions or there abouts.

I recently purchased the "Making of Paranorman" book, which i recommend to absolutely ANYONE. Flicking through i saw a selection of the background characters and how they were so oddly proportioned but still didnt look weird in any massive way. This is something i want to develop my skills in, knowing which proportions you can play around with but still having the characters as recognisable humans.

I think these are the characters i want to develop and build one of them. I want to get more of a contrast between fat and thin, elongate the face of the taller more, give him more spindly fingers, play around a lot more with proportions