Now I have chosen a basic idea I will now explore how I can lay it out and what reference images I will use to aid me in creating the final piece. Before I do that I have done some research on the horror genre as this will help me in creating a better atmosphere for my environment. Now I have decided to create a horror-themed environment I have looked into a couple of subthemes as well that can go alongside this idea.

The Idea: A rundown log cabin with a gravestone as the centerpiece, it is snowing and dark.

Gothic Horror

Gothic horror has been a popular horror genre throughout the beginning of its development from the mid-1700s gaining popularity in the Victorian era (1837-1901) when some of the most famous novels were written such as Dracula and Jekel and Hyde. Near the beginning development of cinema, many of these gothic horror novels were adapted into film and tv where lots of gothic horror novels and writers have been used as inspiration for games in the newer age such as Dark Souls which took inspiration from HP Lovecraft and his writing of cosmic horror.

Gothic horror usually includes themes such as death, religion, philosophy, and morality. This is what I have chosen specifically so I can use this to storytelling and use the inspiration of gothic horror environments and things from that era to help create my environment

Inspiration

The reason I chose to focus on gothic horror is that I like the idea of the storytelling I can create to go with my environment, I specifically like the themes of death and religion as this can go well with the idea I had for the environment, the subthemes for the environment that I think would work best with this are decay, corruption and possibly beauty.

The one I have decided to go with is decay as this would work best with the environment as I want to make the cabin overgrown and the surrounding area decayed.

I chose these images as inspiration for what I would like the building to be inspired by and what the gravestone would be like as well. I particularly want the environment to be unsettling and make it feel like there is something watching. I feel like decay might be a bit difficult with snow but I want to give it a try with what I have in mind, If it doesn’t work then I could always take away the snow as it won’t get rid of any of the atmospheres.

For my centerpiece I am creating a memorial stone with an angel weeping over it, I specifically would like to build around this idea of decay and how grief has led to this decay but still using the atmosphere to make it look like someone is still living inside the log cabin with low light candles and lanterns.

Decay

One thing I have been looking into for decay is wood rot on the log cabin, this is common in older log cabins as proper care hasn’t been upkeeping them but as they have developed owners use wood preservatives.

In this article by Hazelton (2020): https://www.jacksgardenstore.com/blog/2020/04/problems-with-log-cabins/

They go on to say problems that log cabins have if not taken care of properly which will be very useful to think about when I am adding the log cabin to the environment.

References

Ballard, V. (2009) “old” Log cabin…East Texas 1800’s, Flickr. Yahoo! Available at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/valsvisuals/3332162926 (Accessed: March 13, 2023).

Barber, S. (2018) Photo by Sam Barber on unsplash, unsplash. Available at: https://unsplash.com/photos/9Ec2U2kOHXA (Accessed: March 13, 2023).

Deal, T.V. (2020) “Disturbing Insights: Revealing Hidden Fears in Gothic Literature.” University of Hawaii. (Accessed: March 12, 2023)

Dixon, W.W. (2010) A history of horror. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.(Accessed: March 12, 2023)

Hammer, V. (2019) Photo by Veit Hammer on unsplash, unsplash. Available at: https://unsplash.com/photos/YSnZqsF4DLQ (Accessed: March 13, 2023).

Hazelton, J. (2020) Problems with log cabins, Jacks Garden Store Blog. Available at: https://www.jacksgardenstore.com/blog/2020/04/problems-with-log-cabins/ (Accessed: March 20, 2023).

Kadel, J. (2020) Photo by Julia Kadel on unsplash, unsplash. Available at: https://unsplash.com/photos/a8GewfTgpys (Accessed: March 13, 2023).

Pagan, A. (2018) A brief history of gothic horror, The New York Public Library. Available at: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2018/10/18/brief-history-gothic-horror (Accessed: March 12, 2023).

Sigurdsson, F. (2016) Preserving old cabins, cabinlife.com. Available at: https://www.cabinlife.com/articles/preserving-old-cabins (Accessed: March 13, 2023).