to start off...

First day back today and there was a tension and excitement in the air about whose pieces would be chosen to be green lit for the third year.

Amongst those chosen was my idea about Gnomes: a short about two gnomes competing to win the affections of the beautiful Lady Gnome.

So why gnomes?

the idea was born after creating a simple 2d gnome in maya on my work experience. I started thinking bout garden gnomes having little adventures and episodes and then it came to me that there hasnt been an animation starring these odd fellows. Also i kept seeing these guys everyday...

The main comment i've taken away from my pitch is...

"But gnomes are ugly"

yes i'll be the first to admit that they are ugly as sin and a bit of a garrish thing to ever be near but preconceptions are there to be changed and frankly, you cant just ignore something jsut becuase you think its odd/weird a bit different....

thats the aim anyway

so I started with a massive brainstorm of ideas ranging from rubbish fireman to kung fu type grannies, but my idea of these 2 garden gnomes kept on venturing back into the spotlight. The relationship would be one grumpy one vs one annoyingly happy one HOWEVER it was all too similar to that of my manic depresent clown and the cheery benny from last year. As I enjoy stories would a good conflict, I thought what other factors could cause these two conflict...it dawned on me that they were after the affections of another gnome since being a gnome can be a lonely thing (awwww)

so heres some early concept work experimenting with shapes...

For the Pitch...
After completing a few different designs for the characters, I've settled on these 3 for where I wish to take the Macho, Hero and Lady Gnome. These might however be altered and changed in the coming weeks to accommodate to the story of the piece HOWEVER I don't wish to change dramatically from my initial look of the piece.

The environment: Although the focus of my story would not be on the environment, it was important to establish the background for where these gnomes lived. I imagined that whoever would own gnomes would be a pretty big enthusiast of the gardening. The lawn would be pristine and abundant in odd accessories such as windmills, sundials, benches as well as pond to name a few. All these would need to be stylised to match the look of the characters and give consistency to the piece.
Inspirations Page - I shall post some video links of these inspirations on the team blog. Each one of these pieces has contributed to helping me with story or the aesthetic look I want for the final piece. To the left is a quick set of experiments I created in photoshop with layering colour with stone textures, something I wish to develop for the characters final look.

Currently the team has only 2 members of permanent staff with myself as Director and Matt Messenger as Producer. However this years 3rd year sees many freelancers who I intend to call upon throughout the year for their help and guidance. I've already begun discussing parts of the project I wish to freelance out to others who specialise in such areas. This includes...

Ferhan - for potential creation of fluid effects of the pond

Yaniv - who can help with many aspects within the project including modeling, texturing, rigging and animating

Dan Grigsby - potentially can help with lighting, although he is tied to 2 projects currently so I may need to gain a back up here.

I feel over the next coming weeks, my role as director will include getting people on board in order to relieve the work load from me and matt and get some high quality work being shown in the film.

I just want to thank all who voted and wish everyone good luck over the coming year, cant wait til showtime :)