I always like starting off by just throwing ideas out there. These are the first couple of sketches to get my head into it. I went two ways with the costume. The one on the left has more of an astronaut/cosmonaut feel and the other has more of a motorcycle suit influence.
I decided to go with the bulkier astronaut/cosmonaut route than the slimming athletic suit. Here is the original sketch below. As you can see, there is a seam running at the bottom of the page. Originally the drawing was at 8.5" x 11" inches, but it kept growing and shrinking and inevitably I had to tape another piece of paper to accommodate the rest of it. At times, I plot out a rough structure with red pencil lead and flesh out the rest with regular pencil lead. I usually feel that my sketches have a bit more life in this rough state. I just like the immediacy, the accidents and the flow.
Here is the final colored version done in Photoshop. I didn't do too much cleaning up of the sketch except for changing the line color, getting rid of the seam and fleshing out the cape. I am fairly happy with the results. I think that he could have been more dynamic in pose. Fun exercise all in all and I am ready for more.
