Although I consider myself to be fair at pixel art, I couldn't draw the character sprites which were critical to the story of the game, nor their portraits that appear in their dialogue boxes. Thankfully, an artist called TikkiBlossom graciously helped me with this. She drew me a great collection of sprites and portraits for free which I highly appreciate. I guess that technically makes her a dev too and this an indie game as opposed to a solo game.
Different character sprites in the game represent different factions in the world, so they needed to be visually distinct from each other. The outcasts are ragged and dirty, scavengers, survivalists and other chaotic factions wear muted colours, state law enforcement wear pink or red accent colouring and loyalists wear clean uniforms with different coloured armbands denoting their status. Additionally, any NPCs associated with hostile factions typically have their faces obscured in some way. This is a deliberate visual choice by me to disassociate the player and their friends from the people they're supposed to avoid.