New stock, old cartoons

Well now that I have some new stock to carve what am I going to do about it? That's easy, I pulled out my folder of some of my oldest cartoons and I found a few characters that I thought might be fun to carve. Since I have 1 ½” and 2” wood I thought I would start with the 2” and carve that first. I have rough cut two of the three and after roughing it out it seemed 2” was too wide. I decided to cut it down and this will give me a skinny practice piece as well a thicker piece of both characters. Maybe after I carve the skinny rough out the thicker one will seem to give me so much more to carve, maybe not. In the not so distant future I will carve a piece from a magazine or book and then I will carve from an instructional DVD. I want to compare and see which way works best for me when it comes to learning new procedures in carving. I have noticed I am lazy and don't take the time to read the article like I should. How do you learn best and what is your main resource? If anyone has any to share let me know.