I think they’re happy with just a slightly silly foot logo. “Gnome Network Object Model Environment” is a serious sounding name and I don’t think an animal mascot is what they had in mind for branding (seeing as, they don’t have one). An anime gnome might even be the exact opposite of what their intent is. GNOME is looking to be seen as a professional alternative to MacOS and Windows. Speaking of which, note that Windows and OSX don’t have a mascot either.