Yeah, these are inked over colerase pencils with a Pentel pocket brush pen, you can get them here: http://www.jetpens.com/Pentel-Pocket-Brush-Pen-for-Calligraphy/pd/1793
Well if I'd designed the guys in red they'd have legs like skyscrapers and the texture would have been done all in pencil so hawkprey is a better guess than me...
If you will do some own concepting you dont need to make a beautifull painting you can just paint on paper with pencil and do simple layout drawing like a blueprint.
Plastic Animation paper : http://www.plasticanimationpaper.dk/ Site is down now, but you can google some mirror links. Monkey Jam is great too for pencil tests: http://www.giantscreamingrobotmonkeys.com/monkeyjam/
thanks valerian, i'll try that and oh, khali's fine :) yeah, it'll be a good idea to try a darker pencil. i'll keep that in mind when i work on my next piece
get quicker, less feathery lines and be more confident with ur pencil(or wutever medium u use)strokes. hope this helps. im not a very good artist but these tips helped me.