I took this way too seriously.
That said, I'm pretty happy with how it came out. I need to go back and update more of the character art - Blue and Shadan especially, but also Eudora, Palmer, and Nia if I have time - but I already needed to redraw references for Celeste, de Soren, Gio, Makram, Teagan, Tendy, and Deo, since theirs were hilariously out of date. On top of that, I realized I had no references for Ione at all. Welp!
Here are the original notes I had for each character:
Blue Indivar - A middleweight swordfighter with different added effects (fire, electricity, stat drops, etc.) based on his opponent.
Palmer Deadman - Boosts his own stats with different coffees before going in with melee attacks.
Forrest de Soren - A fragile mage who stays away from the battle with lots of long-range spells.
Deo Prestell - Combines debilitating spells that lower the enemy's stats with insidious magic that drains the opponent over time.
Teagan Harvester - A joke character at first glance, but a skilled player can leverage his glitches and odd visual effects into a solid mindgame character.
Celeste Aracely - An all-around avergae fighter with no glaring strengths or weaknesses. She fights using an assortment of carpentry tools.
Shadan Hamidi - A quick, low-defense fighter who excels at fast attacks with her knife.
Giovanni Abategiovanni & Makram Amjad - Paired fighters who can fight either in sync or apart from each other. Their melee attacks align, but their special attacks are unique.
Tendy O'Neill - An aerial fighter with multiple jumps and slow falling speed thanks to her umbrella.
Nia Tendaji - A quick, high-jumping fighter. As a captain in the billiards-inspired sport breaker, she can summon a breaker ball around her to deflect attacks.
Leilani Kaiwi - A fighter who can morph into different animals to change her stats and fighting style.
Duximas - A slow, heavy swordfighter who resorts to punches and kicks in close range.
Breza - A nimble grappler - most of her moves revolve around command throws.
Ione Raptis - A fighter who prefers to stay away from the action and go after enemies with shadow clones.
Eudora Weaver - The slowest and toughest fighter in the game. Her battleaxe packs a big punch.
Sienna Travler - A fighter with no moves of her own. Every round, she'll mimic the fighting style of a different character, even if they're not in the match.
Stormy Sykes - A mage who casts a variety of weak electric spells - but they can't be blocked or countered.
Astra Lucera - A mage who's not afraid to get physical. Her spells and kicks revolve around juggling the opponent in the air.
Ashwyn Vincent - A tanky mage who uses counterspells to redirect attacks back to the opponent.
Agata Silva - A midrange staff fighter who uses moves that chain together in order to strike long combo attacks.