LIMINAL ALBUM: THE MAKING OF
Soooo yeah I guess it's over. I do have some more things to talk about regarding the development process of Liminal since it was a long journey.
So before Liminal we have to talk about the sequel to A Very Sovatic Holiday. Development of said sequel began in August 2024. At this point I already knew an album concept for A Very Sovatic Holiday was underway and my mind was brainstorming a sequel.
My initial idea was for AVSH to be a backstory, the warm nostalgic memories of Charles who eventually becomes a cold blood-thirsty murderer in a post-apocalyptic zombie universe (akin to The Last Of Us with Ellie). This was the earliest stages of Liminal and if you don't believe me I already created two artworks that were meant to apart of the second album.
He Was Captured (note the blue colored title) was meant to be a multi-panel comic with portions of it in color. It was a recreation of the death of Joel Miller (I was really big in TLOU in March/April 2024 and it spilled over in a way to my artworks). It was the moment that kickstarted Charles's bloodthirsty rampage and led him to murder Mr. Macbeth in order to find RHM.
Soon was a teaser for the sequel album, which I still was considering doing up into about December (so like right after this lol). It was Charles all stained in blood and stuff after murdering some toppat clan member. If you brightened the "Soon" a very faint 2 shows up as in the second album.
(Sort section about the sequel album)-------------------------
Metal Bat - (This is what "He Was Captured" was meant to be)
Light at the End of the Tunnel
These are all the artworks on the official setlist for this sequel album I had planned. None of these made the light of day as I didnt start any of them (except for Winter's Howl back in October 2025). The album starts off with a cold moodier vibe as it builds up to Metal Bat, the first climax. It stays at the same intensity for a while before building up to the second and final climax at The Lust For Blood before the end of the album is about healing and moving on.
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So this sequel album had loads of timing issues compounded by AVSH's own timing issues. It was initially expected to debut in December 2024 (to take advantage of the winter vibe in the northern hemisphere) but guess what was also delayed in December, like half of the AVSH artworks. So this idea sat dormant and then was cancelled midway in January when I was super burnt out from schoolwork and AVSH.
Part 2: The Weird Limbo Period in 2025
Between February-June I literally did nothing art-wise I didn't want to think of tumblr or art or The Henry Stickman collection or Krita. I had all my motivation drained.
It wasn't until I came back from Vacation in July when my motivation for art slowly began to trickle back slowly. This was how Training Season and In A World Of Boys He's A Gentleman was made in late July and early August. They weren't meant to be apart of any album, but the latter unintentionally foreshadowed what became Liminal with the blue ocean theme.
Part 3: Creating VALIANT HERO
yes this artwork is the single reason why Liminal exists today. When I made this I thought about the sequel album and AVSH, and potentially having another album cycle with the knowledge to time everything correctly. On October 8th I decided to do it (the day the Liminal planning sheet on google docs was made).
Liminal is a fusion of the sequel album with a less gore-y more nautical theme. I was intially going to name the album Nautical, but it got changed to Brutalist, and then it landed to Liminal in around November. Some ideas such as the themes of isolation, healing, some of the artwork concepts of the sequel album, and even the titles were borrowed for the artworks here in Liminal.
I began to promote Liminal on whiteboard with recreating the singles on there. This explains:
Just like music album rollouts in real life with live-performances to promote singles and the new album, I wanted to mimic this with different versions of the artwork.
I also teased "ROYAL" and a scrapped artwork "Toppat Queen":
Theres loads more I want to yap about but I don't want this to turn into an essay...it probably is already one, and I don't want you to be turned off with a super long post. So this is ending here. There really isnt much after ROYAL was made and posted in October/November...the album pretty much went on track as expected. Liminal did change in concept around this time though, changing from a nautical/deep underwater abyss theme to being a more liminal/space/astronomy theme.
SO TO PUT THIS IN SIMPLE TERMS:
Sequel to AVSH -> Early Liminal (Initially called Nautical/Abyssal) -> Liminal (today)
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So is Liminal a sequel of AVSH? No.
AVSH is very VERY closely tied to the The Henry Stickmin Collection lore and fandom.
Liminal is more tied to my personal experiences in life and if you took out all thsc characters in the artworks and replaced them with some other series or even generic people, it still makes "sense". (excluding Return alone and maybe Monody).
The sequel album also had more of a personal theme tied to it but it was still heavily tangeled with THSC fandom lore.
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