Using the photo references I have collected so far, I have created a few colour palettes to work with for now. I am thinking I would prefer to keep the tone of the scene very natural and earthy, but also cold and wintry. The greens and browns against a grey sky feel very 'English countryside' to me, so that is what I'd like to keep in mind.
I'm against the idea of making this game level a typically 'spooky' or horror genre aesthetic. I think when I describe the idea to people as a Gothic horror game, it conjures up images of purples and blacks with gnarled trees and things that jump out at you. That's not at all my intention for the scene, what I really want is subtle terror. Less of an obvious scariness and more of a feeling of unease in an environment that feels very unforgiving.
So with these colour palettes I've had a go at creating a couple more concept paintings. The first one is very basic blocks of colour. I just did it this way because I wanted to see if the colours were working.
The second piece is similar, in that I was testing more colour styles. I think they both give a very similar feel. The first one is quite rich, whereas the second is more washed-out. The first piece seems to fit more with the time of day I had in mind (it is supposed to be approaching night) but the second one could be a morning scene which wouldn't really work with my story.
In this piece I wanted to start working towards showing how the game might appear from the player's perspective, with the inclusion of the character's hands. I had not given it much thought before, but in the spur of the moment I thought I would give the character a woman's hands. Now I'm quite keen on keeping this in the project. I think the elegant lacy cuffs and feminine hands will contrast nicely with the dark and deformed surroundings.
