After spending a whole week trying to get the garden sorted before winter, I was inspired to create this image with some neglected and possibly evil garden gnomes. Once I decided to have them locked in a shed and peering out the window, I tried out these two characters. The one on the right is menacing with the garden trowel in his hand and the finger held beside his throat. The other with his hands and face pressed against the glass is his slightly goofy or crazy sidekick. He was inspired by the kid in the Windows 10 ad, with his face pressed against the shop window.

I used Poser to to kit-bash Barney 2 and Freddie together, then create the hat and beard using the morph tool and primatives to create the basic gnome. Next I used Daz Studio and added the other elements. I created the iray shader on the gnomes, using Filterforge to make the normal maps etc for the thick paint look. I rendered two versions, one with natural wood textures on the shed and one with a painted look. I then stacked both into Photoshop Elements and erased parts of the painted one to let the wood show through.

It took about a day and a half on and off to create and set up all the elements how I wanted and an hour for each of the renders.