“I decided to take a model from a short I was developing and use it to study lighting and shading with a cartoony look. I wanted to create an ambient, alien look. The principal character is from another world (the one with the big feet that you can just see under the garage door) and I wanted to communicate that with little details here and there.”
http://www.3dtotal.com/tutorial/maya/makingof_garage/garage_01.php