The Snelandskab Christmas Village
A tiny Christmas village built with early 3D printing, LEDs and reckless optimism
A handmade Christmas ident for TV3 Denmark that started with the beautifully specific brief 'make something Christmasy' and somehow ended with a physical Scandinavian village, stop-motion gnomes, resin casting, hand-wired LEDs and baking-soda snow. I worked across concept, design and production, helping turn an open brief into something warm, tactile and very definitely not a stock snowflake animation.
Brief
TV3 Denmark needed a Christmas ident, and the brief left the creative route almost completely open.
Instead of building another polished CG winter scene, we proposed making a real miniature village with houses, gnomes, practical lighting and stop-motion animation. It was deliberately handmade because we wanted the imperfections to be part of the charm.
The Real Challenge
The idea arrived slightly ahead of the workflow.
Consumer 3D printing was still temperamental, we had one printer, limited time and almost no experience with mould-making or resin casting. Animated gnomes required twelve physical walking poses each, which then had to be numbered, painted and swapped correctly frame by frame.
Printing every object individually would have taken far too long, so the production method had to evolve while we were already making the thing.
Execution And Process
We prototyped houses, trees and characters in 3D, testing what would print cleanly and survive finishing. Once the numbers stopped making sense, we moved to silicone moulds and resin casting for repeated objects.
Characters were split for easier painting, houses and lamp posts were wired with tiny LEDs, and the landscape was built from practical materials including PVA, glitter and a surprisingly convincing amount of baking soda.
For the animation we used Dragonframe and a Blackmagic camera, replacing the numbered gnome poses frame by frame. It was equal parts design studio, miniature workshop and extremely low-budget toy factory.
Stills & Styleframes
Did It Work?
The finished ident had a warmth that would have been difficult to fake digitally because the imperfections were real. The tiny lights, handmade surfaces and practical stop motion gave the piece its own character.
It became a memorable seasonal ident, and viewers even asked where the miniature village came from, which was a nice reward after spending so long manufacturing imaginary Scandinavian real estate.
Personal Reflection
This was one of the most stressful projects I have ever loved.
It pushed me into 3D printing, casting, practical lighting, model-making and stop motion at the same time, mostly by forcing us to solve problems as they appeared. I would absolutely do it again, just with more printers, more time and possibly professional gnome management.
Behind the scenes:
https://vimeo.com/317049636