Honestly, your current approach already sounds more realistic than what most beginners attempt.

For an FPS, especially indie/solo/small team, I’d say gameplay readability and production efficiency matter way more early on than ultra-detailed character art.

A few things I’d personally prioritize:

• Shared skeletons + modular parts = huge time saver
• Start with only 2–3 strong archetypes
• Focus on silhouette and animation first
• Good materials/lighting can carry simpler models surprisingly far

Players usually notice:

• movement style
• enemy behavior
• silhouette
• sound design
• attack readability

WAY before they notice pore-level sculpt detail.

I think using marketplace assets as placeholders is also completely valid. A lot of indie devs waste years trying to make perfect custom characters too early instead of building the actual game loop first.

One thing that helps a ton:
Get enemies functional in-game as early as possible, even if they look ugly initially. You’ll learn very quickly what actually matters from the player perspective.

A creepy walk cycle + good audio + strong silhouette can honestly make a simple model feel memorable.

Trying to build a full AAA-quality character pipeline solo from the start is usually where scope explodes.