A "Knight" to remember

Here is my preliminary designs for the Boy's fantasy Knight design. Just a rough design to achieve a concept and practice my skills on the cintique since I'm still quite green to the technology. Here are just the break down steps from gesture/rough to color test. I plan on going back and doing the final model in a traditional means due to the fact that I'm stronger on paper and pen than digital at the moment. Enjoy.

Idea and concept art: Part Uno

Hello all. I've come up with my premise so here goes:

It's a dark stormy night.... oops wrong one

*ahem* Take your traditional story: Knight, valiant and strong. Damsel in distress locked in the highest tower of the castle. Throw in a typical dragon, evil wizard, and a monkey with a monocle and crazy action. The Knight fights past the evil do-ers, makes his way to the tower. The Princess is over joyed and rushes to him. He rushes forward. She opens her arms to embrace him... but he runs past her! She waits a second. She stops. Turns. Low and behold he's hugging a glass of milk and plate of cookies on a table behind her. Cut back to reality. A little girl and little boy playing dress up. The boy wears a bucket on his head and cardboard armor, the girl in dress-up princess gown. She's steamed at him for ruining her fantasy dress up story. He's just happy he made it to the cookies.

That's it so far. Tell me what you guys think. Good, bad, silly, not silly, too over the top, you love cookies. Which ever. My aim is to have dynamic fun action with the knight and monster sequence then add some fun humor in when we return to reality.

Oh and below are some concept art of the boy and girl and the knight ... who doesn't look very knight-ish. Model sheets coming soon!

Animation Type/style

I intend to utilize full-animation in my final project. Not much story will be involved as my goals to go for dynamic action and strong camera angles/ shots. Cinematography will be stressed.

I also would like to play with outline-free, or at least non-black outlined, cartooning as many contemporary cartoons/ animations are playing with. Cartoons that have used this technique are Samurai Jack and Kim Possible:

Pick your Fav!

Batman Beyond is a top fav. of mine. Bruce Timm took the Batman franchise to new levels and retold the character in a fresh, unique way. It was edgy, dark, slick and action packed with some of the best writing as far as TV animation goes. The stories were mature and enjoyable to not only children but appealed to older audiences as well. Not to mention the animation, being out-sourced, was done well for TV animation.

Up for seconds?

Todd Hoppmeyer is my name and cartooning is my game. I hale from Dacula, Georgia and am majoring in Sequential Art and minor in animation. I like long walks on the beach... wait wrong blog. Chocolate is my top favorite food. Though I'm a southern boy and do love me some good 'ol Steak and potatoes. I jam to my favorite song by the Gorillaz: "Feel Good Inc." I enjoy flash fighting games of all web games. The Teen Titans one on CartoonNetwork.com is a top favorite of mine. I love speed so thus my favorite animated character is Sonic the Hedgehog. Steven Spielberg is a top favorite director of mine cause he blends action and story so well thus in find myself sitting in front of Minority Report a lot. The Office is a hoot cause I love Steve Carell and its eclectic cast. And Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker wins hands down for my favorite animated movie.

This is actually my second blog. My professional one can be found at:
http://hoppart.blogspot.com/