More Concept Work

At the beginning of the Summer I posted some concept work for a potential 3rd year project (click here to view the post). I've been thinking about it a lot recently and here's another piece of concept  art I drew this morning. I have an idea for a short 2D animation about a squad of soldiers losing a war on a foreign planet and I'm beginning to think about story lines and characters. I've mainly been thinking about the design aspect of the project and I think I've found a style which would suit the storyline. My main influence for the story was "Starship Troopers" and "Heavy Metal" but I'm taking a very different approach for the design of the film; "Starship Troopers" is a mock propaganda video so all the characters are square jawed with tooth paste comercial smiles and immaculate  high-tech uniforms. Instead I'm trying to design the characters around the principal of retrofitting (a design principle pioneered by the film "Blade Runner") by looking at the uniforms of the Americans in the Vietnam war and adding other modern elements.
In the story the soldiers have been abandoned on the planet for months so I'm trying to make all the uniforms look tatty and worn in and I'm drawing the soldiers looking gaunt and unshaven.

I've been looking at the work of Frank Miller, Mike Mignolia and Jamie Hewlett because I really like their bold, atmospheric styles and the attention to detail. At the moment I want the whole film to be black and white and I'm using very minimalistic backgrounds to create a feeling of isolation.