to do list...

List of what I need to model/finish off modelling:

Fork

Flowers - heros + 2 others for his side of the garden

Fishing Rod

Trees - sort em out

stump - again...sort it out

Leaves - give depth to, adjust with lattice

Lady Gnome - finish that mother

Hero's Prize Flower

I didn't want the flowers to resemble realistic flowers, but more have qualities of them with a twist. Hero's flower in-particular needed to resemble something of distinct value, its precious to him so therefore should look pretty different from the other flowers in the garden. I tried designing purely from my head but looked through a few different books until i found a few elements i wanted to encompass into the design.

in the beginningt: I like the petals, but the central part needs something more....im not sure whether i prefer it squared...

as opposed to smooth?
Using the lattice tool to give more definition to the petals, addition of stomas for the centre which need lengthening and more separation between each. Need to vary the petals as its too symmetrical but defiantly getting there.

Model smoothed...not liking the flower smoothed to be honest...

Fishing Rod

I attempted this as more of a square design, but it looked very primitive. So starting again and extruding from a cylinder to create this.

The Weed:

To the left is the plant extruded from a cube works well when it comes to stylising it however looks primitive once smoothed and beveling adds not a lot to the model really. To the right is a version of the plant modelled from an extruded cylinder which gives a cleaner outline HOWEVER its branches look generally rubbish unsmoothed and smooth as you can see....

unsmoothed models...

smoothed...

extruded cube model with added geometry (right) so it retains a more squared off shape when smoothed (left)

Close up of the leaves...as pointed out by Adam, the shapes are fine but the depth needed addressing otherwise they would look extremely primitive. These have been extruded slightly to give a nice curve when smoothed.

Leaves are shaped into position using a lattice...
The Petals....started out as a extruded cube then using the lattice tool to give the geometry curvature.

Flower numero deux....one final flower to go along with the troop of plants in Hero's little garden, less wow factor than the prize one but hey still pretty magnificent to say the least.

left: unsmoothed model, right is model smoothed.

Original petal modeled from extrdued cube...

the petals in their lattices are then curved into desired shape and the copied over to create the new flower...(i think my favourite new tool for this term!)

When it came to adding the flower, the stem seemed way too tall and made the flower look a bit obsolete so i changed the shape about a bit and moved and sewed the preferred stork to its new position to get the following...

Model unsmoothed...lower petal needs twisting a bit to fill the gap more. That pot is WAY too tiny. Needs a central point to the flower as the petals gather to nothing at the moment.

added centre piece...

smoothed

The Fork:

Ok, there have been previous attempts at this model and along with their positives came a whole load of negatives which when we broke it down, came down to the prongs on the fork. Although squared off, stylized they looked unbelievably underworked, lame and genuinely not conveying the practical element of a garden fork. Along with stylization comes a believability in the item, the audience has to believe it could be used and maybe they would...but they would believe it was a primitive fork none the less. This prop is KEY to the story, therefore needs to look killer...

SO...taking the good points, i spent many hours looking at a garden fork to redesign this in maya...

not bad...proportion wise not quite long enough but not bad. More details from the handle to the stem to the base give us more information....

lengthened...got rid of the ridge bit between the prongs to make a more solid object....
which prongs do you prefer?

Showed the guys and the preference was for the fork prongs to the left as it looked much slicker, so I'll continue with that one, adding in a nice curve to the shape that garden forks have.

left: original fork, middle: new fork unsmoothed, right: new fork bevelled and smoothed....need to sort out that middle prong.

Heros Corner:

Just to get a quick idea how the environment is building up....these are the unbevelled pots and models are unsmoothed but frankly still looking rather swanky...grass patches and tufts as well as leaves will need to be added when dressing the set. EDIT: after showing the guys, the second flower needs to be reduced in height/size as its dominating as much space as the prize flower...will alter this accordingly.

Machos Corner: another render test to see the props possible layout for Machos corner of the garden...less curls and swirls and more grafting. Again lots of grass patches and tufts and addition of leaves required in set dressing...

The Trees: after much discussion it was decided the design needed redoing. The trees that were originally designed, though stylistic were too big for the environment in which the story is set. They're the kinda trees you'd find in the vast woods with frodo baggins instead of the humble garden with the quaint little gnomes (yes i said quaint....what of it?) Anywho i looked into my garden, my neighbours garden, then had a staring match with the neighbours becuase of the whole looking into their gardens, then a redesign of the trees so they embedded the curly qualities of our flowers: