Major Project Initial Character Designs

Here are my initial ideas for how the characters will look. They are obviously quite influenced by the Fantastic Four i.e. with the matching suits no masks etc...  I've been using this as an opportunity to try and design the characters to look different. I am conscious that as I draw I tend to approach constructing figures the same way and as a result this means there are often similarities in the way the characters look to each other. You see this sort of thing with a lot of comic artists. All the generic background characters look similar. They all have the same nose because the artist draws noses the same way every time for example. I would like to try and avoid this and to do that I have been trying to approach the characters features and body sizes slightly differently.

When I come to do the final designs for the characters this will be more obvious. It's something I would like to carry through my work from this point on. What I find approaching drawing characters like this does, is gives the characters more individuality. It separates them from everyone else. They should all have their own shapes and silhouettes and personalities.

At this stage I feel like I am drawing slight variations on the same suit design over and over. I will do a bit more research and try some different approaches to see if I can come up with something a bit more iconic as I feel that these initial suit designs are very "obvious". 

Superheroes need to be unique. They need to be bright and colourful. It's practically a genre convention. 

I had been planning to do these sort of clean pencil style drawings for the book but after some feedback I feel like it's too stiff and that the life and energy of the work I did on the Lost Legionnaire is getting lost. 

I want to try and have some sort of similar messy style to the inks as I feel that comes more naturally to me. If I can somehow spend a bit of time working into that with more gradation and gray tones through hatching etc... then I might end up with something that is still my personal style but appropriate for the project. I feel that the lost legionnaires heavy black and white style is not quite fitting for a superhero book.  I prefer the drawing below on the right for example but think that it's still a little too "neat".

This chap is the villain of the piece, a Superman analogue. I quite like the idea of him wearing the american flag styled cape and have worked it into the plot.