That was a SPEED-DRAW. I couldn't draw something that good if I worked on it for ten years.
You definitely could. You just follow shapes and shadows from a photograph.
As for the new movie, hopefully it
does take some stuff from G4 (and G1, and Tales) because it's just cute to reference. It's a shout out to those who grew up with the older stuff, and still follow it today. It's like making Jem without a reference to the old cartoon at all.
...oh wait, Hasbro did exactly that.