[anime] c'mon daggers!

[meat]

Haha 12 kingdoms was very popular back then, they even translated it to spanish, i watched a few caps as a kid first thats why i remember.

After taking a look at the style you are going for i gathered these examples for you:

You have this concept art from Mabinogi heroes (Dont mind the snake back lol)
If you take a look at her face, the proportions are all manga but realistically rendered in a beautiful way.



But, if you ask me what works better are this artworks Shunya Yamashita did for Last Exile.
Its just lineart, then you add the base colors and paint over to give depth and solidity to the characters. Kinda like the ones you mentioned from FMA (well, this is a common technique in manga, but i specially like this particular ones haha)





You could also take a look at the great master Takehiko Inoue, this is by far my favourite style when it comes to mixing reality and manga.





As you can see, this stylizations arent that different from painting something real, you just need to know whats beneath your drawing, like Dennis said, having a solid Knowledge of the human body structure is fundamental.
So grab some anatomy books and start studying like there is no tomorrow, thats what i´m doing right now haha.

I forgot about Last Exile! Yes, now I have plenty of artists to look at other than that Japanese dude, thanks man!