Gordon (T&F)/Behind the Scenes

Background Information
Gordon is a fictional standard gauge tender locomotive created by the Rev. W. Awdry. He is the No. 4 engine on the North Western Railway.

Gordon first appeared in the first series episode Thomas and Gordon, which first aired in 1984. His last appearance was in the twenty-fourth series episode Thomas' Animal Friends, which was released in 2021.

Voice
Neil Crone voiced the character in Thomas and the Magic Railroad, giving the character a faint but noticable British accent.

Beginning with Hero of the Rails and the switch to a full voice cast for the CGI series, Keith Wickham assumed the character's role in the UK and Kerry Shale in the US. While Wickham maintains Gordon with a British accent, Kerry Shale's performance is clearly American. Much like Henry, a few of Shale's earlier lines as Gordon were lower in pitch compared to most other recordings, but became higher as the series progressed.

Gauge 1 models
Gordon's original model was custom built to run on gauge 1 track for the Unaired Pilot. The model was built with a plastic body shell by model maker Martin Gill. It was painted using glossy car body paint and lined with red automotive pinstripe tape with the numbers being custom cut vinyl stickers. The buffers and the axleguards on Gordon's tender were made by Tenmille. The chassis was built from scratch, but it was never tested before being filmed in front of the camera and proved to be unreliable, having to be constantly be modified during filming.

The space behind the eyes in the body accommodated two little RC servos and a parallelogram arrangement to allow the eyes to be moved by means of a joystick on the remote control. Often, the eyes were set and locked in a particular direction, and the static from the power coupling on the track sometimes affected the servos and made the eyes suddenly veer off wildly.

The model was equipped with a smoke generator based on a 12V car cigarette lighter, with conventional studio smoke-machine oil dripped on the hot element before each shot – but the heat proved to be sufficient enough to warp the inside of the bodyshell, so they could not be used for any length of time, and the smoke effect itself proved to be underwhelming, emanating smoke rather feebly that sometimes emanated from gaps behind the eyes or at the side of the face-plug.

The eye mechanism had two servos, one for up and down movement and one for left and right movement. The up/down servo was attached to the body. The left/right servo had a rod attached to the arm, which connected to a bracket. The eye balls were coupled to the bracket and locked in by the face-plate, so whenever the servos were powered, the eye balls would move however the crew member desired.

Model Changes
Gordon’s gauge 1 model has gone through several aesthetic changes in the television series:
 * Series 3:
 * For this series only his dome was made to be removable for the episode Gordon and the Famous Visitor, due to this a seam line is visible in several episodes.
 * Series 4:
 * His brake pipe faced downward.
 * His whistle sound changed and shared the same one as Duck's.
 * Series 5:
 * He regained his original whistle sound, excluding some scenes in Gordon and the Gremlin and Bye George!.
 * Thomas and the Magic Railroad:
 * His paint was given a matte finish.
 * His brake pipe is facing upward again.
 * He gained red lining on the cab end of his tender.
 * His whistle sound changed.
 * His coupling base was removed.[3 ]
 * His trailing wheels moved forward, joining to his driving wheel chassis.
 * His front right bogie wheel became a 12 spoke type due to being mixed-up with one of his tender wheels which was on a 12 spoke set. Henry has Gordon's 12 spoke on the front left side of his leading truck, whilst his and Gordon's original 10 spoke bogie wheels were fitted on the latter's tender.
 * Series 6:
 * The lining on his pistons was moved slightly inwards.
 * The ends of his crank pins were painted blue.
 * He regained his coupling base, but it is a different piece compared to the original.
 * He regained his original whistle sound again.
 * Series 8:
 * His eyebrows became thinner and arch more.
 * Series 10:
 * His cylinder steam pipes became taller. (brass model)
 * His front right bogie wheel became a 10 spoke type again. (brass model)
 * His eyebrows changed shape completely.
 * Series 12:
 * The lining on the cab end of his tender was removed.
 * His cab had been slightly lowered.
 * His dome moved slightly back.

Present Day
After production of the model series wrapped in 2008, most of the models and sets would be put into storage, with some being put on display at Drayton Manor Theme Park. All other models would be logged and referenced in 2009 by HiT Entertainment, from this HiT would decide on which models were to enter storage once again, which would be given to crew members and which to be disposed of. Due to the size of Gordon's plastic model and the cost to make it, the plastic model would be kept, alongside the newer brass models used at the time and all would stay under HiT and later Mattel's ownership.

One of Gordon's brass models is now on display at Hara Model Railway Museum. It had been previously on display at Nitrogen Studios with his concerned face.

Faces
Twenty-one different facial expressions were sculpted for Gordon, although only nineteen were used on-screen and two of which disgusted and yawning were left unused. The faces were first sculpted in clay and from that resin casts were made of a silicone mould. All of Gordon's first series faces were sculpted by model maker, Tim Staffell. Some of Gordon's faces were duplicated in case the crew needed to a face to look dirty and clean on the same day of shooting. Three of Gordon's faces are owned by Twitter and Instagram user ThomasTankMerch.

Close-up model
A close-up model of Gordon was made to interact with the close-up figures, especially with the driver and firemen interacting with Gordon. The close-up model has smoke emitting from the whistle as desired.

Many close-up models were not complete models, and Gordon was not a particularly complete model until the eighth series.

In the first to seventh series, only Gordon's cab and tender were built for the driver and firemen scenes. This continued until the eighth series episode, Squeak, Rattle and Roll, where a chassis built with wheels, rods and valve gear were built for inspection scenes. Thus, now making Gordon a particularly complete close-up model (minus a visible face and tender wheels).

CGI model
In 2009, the series introduced Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) as a replacement for the show's long-standing live-action models. Gordon was recreated from scratch in CGI by Nitrogen Studios. His model was "hand-sculpted" in Maya, a 3D animation and modelling software.

Photographs of Gordon's Series 10-12 brass gauge 1 model was used for referencing. According to Greg Tiernan, every detail of the original television series models for each character is carefully reproduced in the CGI model. The models are subjected to many rounds of review before they are submitted to HiT Entertainment for final input and approval.

Texture Variants
In addition to his standard livery, several other texture variants exist of Gordon's main CGI model. Many only appear once, however a few are reused mutliple times. These texture variants include:

Pantone colours
The following pantone colours are used on Gordon's CGI model:

Voice Actors

 * Neil Crone
 * Keith Wickham
 * Stephen Donald
 * Kerry Shale
 * Rob Rackstraw
 * Salvador Nájar
 * Jorge Roig
 * Dafnis Fernández
 * Harold Salazar
 * Salvador Serrano
 * João Carlos Guerra
 * Mauro Gasperini
 * Bernard Demory
 * Michel Lasorne
 * Leo Richardson
 * Norbert Gescher
 * Christian Stark
 * Tetje Mierendorf
 * Jürgen Holdorf
 * Øyvind Borgemoen Lyse
 * Ole Møller
 * Markus Bäckman
 * Pasi Ruohonen
 * Karacsonyi Zoltan
 * Karacsonyi Zoltan
 * Sławomir Pacek
 * Miłogost Reczek
 * Vladimir Antonik
 * Denis Bespaliy
 * Danny Segev
 * Nir Ron
 * Loukas Frangoulis
 * Kenji Utsumi
 * Kenta Miyake
 * Jeon Tae-yeol
 * Shin Yong-u