How do I properly use symbols to animate a character?

Hopefully what I can explain what I'm trying to do clearly enough here.

So I'm trying to animate a character walking. I could very easily do this by drawing each frame of the walk cycle, but I'd like a consistent look throughout (I don't want the foot, for example, to change shape drastically other than where it's supposed to bend and curve.) So my current method of doing it is to convert everything into symbols, go to the next frame, break them apart, and then make slight adjustments with the pencil tool to fill in the shape.

The problems come in when it it's time to animate the rest of the character. Or sometimes the stacking order of the body parts gets funky and I have to make new symbols/layers just to fix it, etc... I don't know if I need more symbols, or to just animate the entire character in 1 symbol or what. At this point I'm not really sure if I can explain accurately the issues I'm having, simply put though: Animation wise I have a good grasp on things, but when it comes to Flash's tools I'm a little lost.

I'm using the homestarrunner style as a reference for practice, this one has a good example of the kind of walk I'm trying to do with my own character. http://www.homestarrunner.com/xmas10.html

If someone knows a good setup for how these cartoons are done, it would help me greatly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hRSGbg-CfQ

this video shows how to animate without BONES, but he does a good job explaining a walk cycle.