You're modding gnomes too? There goes my unique appeal!
The beautiful (and annoying) thing about gnomes is that they have different iterations in almost every fantasy setting. Just look at gnomes in DnD 3.5 and DnD 4, in one gnomes are closely related to dwarves, but more magically inclined, and have a greater understanding of invention. In the other, they are little more than mini-elves that can disappear at will. In Everquest, gnomes are extremely smart and take a scientific approach to all things, magic and machine, but do not care about the practicality of anything they do, theres a quest where you help a gnome build a mining machine that uses the diamonds it mines as fuel, because that would let it work forever and increase the yield. In WoW gnomes are much like EQ gnomes but they put a greater emphasis on the impracticality and a lesser emphasis on the raw ingenuity, while using the impracticality as a much more overt form of comic relief, as opposed to EQ, which does use it as comic relief, but not as often and much more subtle.
All of these gnomes are different sizes ranging from about 2 feet (WoW) to about 4 feet (DnD) and Tolkin's gnomes were about 5 to 6 feet (they are described as elves that dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge.
Because of this, everyone has a different perception of what a gnome should be. When I think gnome, I'm thinking EQ, where a gnome could build a clockwork dragon for someone who commissioned it, but when it started up it would be a dragon, and go on about it's way doing dragon things like eating the people who commissioned it. The gnomes who built it would be confused why anyone would want such a dangerous clockwork. And a dragon clockwork that didn't act like a dragon, to the gnomes, wouldn't be a dragon clockwork.
So, don't let someone with a different idea of what a gnome is discourage you, instead see if you can take aspects that you like from their gnomes and apply them into your own.