Superhero Character Design

What's this? Have I actually drawn someone other than myself? And it's a GUY?

I never draw men because I'm just not good at it. Not sexist. Just bad at drawing. Can never get the hair right. True story.

But yep! I drew a picture of a guy. He's a superhero. He wears shades of blue, he's super strong, and he can fly. He's not bulletproof and he doesn't have laser vision and he can't fly fast enough to turn back time. I'm not completely ripping off Superman.

It's 1:30 A.M., I've just finished writing a paper, I've gotten precious little sleep over the last four days, and I decided to stay up and draw a superhero. I don't know. I just felt like it, I guess.

So why am I drawing a superhero? That is a very good question. No, I'm not making a comic or a graphic novel or anything like that. I'm making something one might find slightly less impressive: a poetry chapbook. It's basically the final exam for my poetry class. For our most recent workshop I wrote a poem called "Blue Justice" about a policewoman and a superhero (it's not as romantic as you expect), and it was super long and narrative-y because I am almost incapable of writing a poem without trying to tell a story in it. But my teacher really liked it and told me that I should expand it, add pictures, and boom- there's my chapbook.

So I'm starting to play around with character designs. This picture is definitely flawed and I am definitely incapable of drawing something that doesn't look cartoony, and I definitely have a lot to learn about drawing human bodies, but... I'm pretty impressed with this picture. In fact, I'm a little sad because I don't know if I'll be able to draw this guy again and have him look this good. Does anybody out there on the Internet have any suggestions? Comments? Tips? Free drawing lessons? Remember I'm a writer who likes to draw, not an artist. If you use big art-y words, I will have to go look them up (although I'll probably post the definitions as Random Facts afterward).

I am actually taking a graphic novel class next fall. It'll be either really awesome or a massive fail.