Personal horror interpretation - 2D (design no.3)

This post captures the third 2D design for my personal horror interpretation. Below, I will be outlining the design process, formally analysing the finished piece, looking for any errors and finally setting myself some relevant and productive next steps.

Design process

 Using the grid again, I created the basic shape of the cabin.

 Adding minor details to create the illusion of abandonment, I began to also construct tress in the background.

To understand my space and to display an accurate sense of scale, I added some grass in the foreground. I also added more detail to the trees in the background, using lower value tones of brown on the bark to project shadows.

Creating more background activity, I added more trees behind the cabin.

Providing more depth, I painted monochromatic values in the grass.

Realising my colour values were too high, I added more darkness to the tree bark, followed by filling in the cabin itself.

With the addition of a dark blue night sky, I removed some of the details of the cabin to make the piece more simple and used monochromatic brown values on the shed to capture the light projected from the moon.

Formal analysis:

Summary:

Monochromatic colour values are present in the greens of the tree foliage and grass, as well as the browns of the tree bark and cabin.

The depth of field is infinite as it has no blurring.

The lighting is directional, shown in the highlighted areas via the monochromatic colour patterns.

The camera is long range, placed at a lower height and set at a side angle.

This piece uses darkened low value colour patterns which include; greens, browns and blues.

The lines are both straight and angular, highlighting no obvious fixed pattern or scheme.

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The shapes do not conflict, displaying a well blended mixture of squares, rectangles and triangles. 

The scale of this piece is somewhat proportionate and realistic as the cabin and grass are given almost equal space, however, the trees are too short and reduce some gatherings of realism in this piece.

Analysis:
The dark blue background is used to give an indication to the time-of-day, in this case evening time. The tonal differences of the grass and the cabin are used to project darkness. Monochromatic colour patterns are used to project segments of light and dark on the cabin, using higher values for the light and lower values for the dark/shadows. The trees in the background are used to develop the setting, creating the impression of an isolated atmosphere. The solid coloured windows are used to highlight the fact that this cabin is uninhabited and/or abandoned.

Interpretation:
The aim of this piece is to capture the unique characteristics of Japanese directed horror. Like the first piece, this scene creates the understanding that there is no clear direction to run to safety, no obvious  indication of the cabin's location and nothing in sight but more trees and darkness, evoking feelings of anxiety and uncertainty. Developing the successful elements of the original piece, this features lack of human presence, evoking themes of separation and abandonment. Minor themes of growth and laziness are captured in this piece through the monochromatic values of the green grass because the grass has been unattended and unseen to for some time and has began to overgrow and weed.

Judgement:
The criteria I will be using to judge this piece are setting, composition and colour. The setting does display an isolated atmosphere because, like Japanese horror it evoke feelings of anxiety and uncertainty, however, more background activity is needed to further promote and/or evoke these feelings. The colours in this scene are low value and display monochromatic patterns via the greens of the grass, the browns of the trees and the cabin and the dark blue of the night sky, thus, following the darkened lower value colour patterns in Japanese horror, however, a heightened grey-scale is required to add more saturation.

When focusing on composition, Japanese horror follows realistic proportions, however, in this piece the cabin and the trees appear rather unrealistic because of their scale. Showing no problem thus far and following Japanese horror, the camera in this scene is placed at a lower height and set at a side angle. Shapes in this piece do not conflict, drawing the central focus towards the cabin. With the inclusion of an infinite depth of field, this design continues to display more characteristics of Japanese horror.

In conclusion this piece adheres to some of the characteristics of Japanese horror, however, it does  not fully evoke feelings of fear and the atmosphere of horror. More work needs to be done to capture the abandoned and isolated aesthetic, including more signs of horror such as minor gore or shadows.

Next steps

• Projected lighting
• More shadows
• More saturation