New brief - character modeling

We were told about the new brief this morning; we have 8 weeks (excluding the Christmas break) to model, rig, UV, texture, light, animate and render an environment with an organic character and an inorganic character which have to interact with each other.  There doesn't seem to be many constraints as to what the characters have to be or what environment they have to be in which is good, but some times having so much choice can prolong making a final decision.  My first thoughts were to focus on a squash and stretch cartoon character, but I'm unsure of the setting and what the inorganic character should be.