Character gimmick:
None

Best(?) brush:
Any brush

Useful/necessary Items:
Anything

General strategy:
As a starting character it’s obvious that anything works, as long as you know what you are working towards.

Character gimmick:
Start with 3 buddies, but slower attack speed

Best(?) brush:
Any brush

Useful/necessary Items:
Best friends, Star, the rest of the buddies

General strategy:
The amount of support the buddies give make most brushes (even the ones that suck) quite viable. Of course, I recommend you find either more buddies or boost them to have a firing squad to back you up.

Character gimmick:
Start with 5 health, but slower movement speed

Best(?) brush:
Thick brush, pencils or watergun

Useful/necessary Items:
Healing, extra attack speed/damage, movement speed buffs

General strategy:
The extra health gives quite a lot of breathing room, however without some form of healing it only delays the end of your run. Any brush can work, but the ones with infinite range/crowd control will help a lot. Avoid the fish at all costs, as they will corner you if you lack the firepower.

Character gimmick:
Faster movement speed and spawns limes that grant a temporary fire rate boost, at the cost of having 2 max health

Best(?) brush:
Watergun, thick brush, pencils.

Useful/necessary Items:
Extra max health, extra attack speed/damage, Vampire fangs

General strategy:
One of my favorite characters, the limes encourage a more active playstyle and is also the character I have the least amount of wins with. It sounds good, but don’t risk going for a lime in a dangerous spot. Granted, finding more max health diminishes the risk.

Character gimmick:
Gain energy faster and has a higher energy capacity, but lose energy when you are hit and a small attack speed penalty

Best(?) brush:
Roller/ Any other brush

Useful/necessary Items:
Battery, Yellowlite, Tesla coil, Broken hourglass

General strategy:
The most boring variant on Vanilla, its only real strength is that high energy use items can be used more that 2 times before depleting the meter. This points to 2 strategies: increase your energy capacity as much as you can and watch as the Tesla coil fire rate goes to the moon or equip the roller and never stop dashing (it makes you practically invincible).

Character gimmick:
Extra money gain, starts with Purse and Interest, but base health is 2 and every item held decreases your fire rate slightly(not really noticeable)

Best(?) brush:
Pencils or thick brush

Useful/necessary Items:
Extra max health, fire rate/damage buffs, extra support

General strategy:
Much like Berry, I find Lemon quite forgettable AND frustrating. The lack of Creative burst makes the early stages quite dangerous, as you can get swarmed quite easily without good crowd control. If anything the best thing to do is find a good active item and replace the purse. Besides that, it’s just like you are playing Vanilla.

Character gimmick:
High attack and movement speed, but starts with one health and extra max health gets converted into attack speed

Best(?) brush:
Pencils

Useful/necessary Items:
Extra max health, extra fire rate buffs, support (buddies or extra projectiles), the wall

General strategy:
Any mistake as this character means instant death (unless you get the divine luck of finding the Brick and obtaining the Wall), so ditch sustainability and focus on getting more power. Protective items do help, but you don’t need them if you kill everything. With that in mind, I prefer the pencils as they always penetrate, making quick work of huge crowds. Just as a warning, if you see fish spawning, track them very carefully so they don’t end your run.

Character gimmick:
Gain fire rate as you fire continuously, but your shots do less damage the faster you fire

Best(?) brush:
Watergun or pencils

Useful/necessary Items:
Extra damage, extra fire rate. support

General strategy:
This character is strange, as you might think this gimmick makes every brush broken, but it does not. The thick brush has too much spread, the thin brush projectiles are too slow, finger painting and spray can have no range, however, the watergun is very powerful for both bosses and large crowds. Besides that, any strategy that doesn’t sacrifice your movement speed will work.

Character gimmick:
Starts with acid puddles and Toast throwable, with a minor attack speed penalty

Best(?) brush:
Any brush

Useful/necessary Items:
Magnet, anything that helps your brush

General strategy:
This variant encourages a very interesting playstyle, as before the update throwables were a projectile that always penetrates and helps with large crowds, but you had to pick them back up. The magnet however, makes them very viable against non-bosses, since as long as you have room to dash you can basically use them as your main weapon. Only problem is that they don’t do much damage against bosses.

Character gimmick:
Starts with turrets and passively regenerates the first energy point, at the cost of low fire rate

Best(?) brush:
Thick brush or pencils

Useful/necessary Items:
Battery, yellowlite, items that increase energy gain, broken hourglass

General strategy:
Starting without Creative burst may sound like a debuff, but the turrets can get more done. That’s why i recommended maximizing the energy meter, as having a firing squad on demand is quite powerful it’s just a question of surviving to that point.

Character gimmick:
starts with tribrush and flush, but attacks slower and starts with 2 health

Best(?) brush:
Thickbrush

Useful/necessary Items:
Anything

General strategy:
For context, Tribrush is one of the most lucrative items in the game so starting with it sounds very good, however the Dry debuff makes this character borderline unusable. The best strategy in my opinion is getting the paint mixer in the shop and exchanging all your items, Tribrush may be good but it’s not worth the debuff.

Character gimmick:
GAMBLING (the last 3 items you picked up get changed every time you clear a floor)* and starts with the prism
*rerolled items always match the type of item that was present before
active item > active item
passive item > passive item

Best(?) brush:
Any brush

Useful/necessary Items:
Anything (don’t get too attached to your items)

General strategy:
There is none, just pray you get something good and roll with it. Remain flexible and you might just win. Make use of the Paint mixer as much as you can as it reorders the items, perhaps saving the ones you want to keep.