Welcome to Star Wars minis! As one of many designers that have helped over the years I'd be happy to detail out the process for you. Every year, there are 2 Virtual sets made with 18 characters in each set.

1. Our design process starts with selecting a team of experienced star wars mini's players to be designers.
2. When we have 4 designers selected, each designer will submit 4 unique and 4 non-unique characters to the forum thread set up for v-set set creation on swmgamers.com. All of the design work is done on that website. Each character will have a description for what we envision it to bring to the game and a power level we want it to be for competitive play. Sometimes rough drafts are included to better show what the character would look like. A set is 18 characters, with 16 of those being designed by the v-set team, the other 2 being designed by the Gencon champion, and the VassalCon champion. Other sets will have the New Zealand champion design a piece.
3. When all designers have submitted their characters, each designer votes on which characters they would most like to see in the set list by ranking the other designers characters. The 2 highest ranked uniques and non-uniques from each designer are chosen for the set list. When we have received the designs from the tournament champions, we have a set list made.
4. Each character gets its own design thread. The initial draft for each character is made and we all discuss as a group what abilities or stats need to be adjusted or removed to match the point cost and intended power level for that character. The characters design gets updated as needed and when every designer is satisfied with the design, we approve it to be playtested.
5. Characters that are approved to be playtested are sent out to other players for testing. Often the designers themselves will also test out the pieces. Our goal with each piece is to make the best squads utilizing them to detect if there is any imbalance on its performance, whether is does its job too good or not good enough. We factor in its impact on the rest of the squad and if it created any broken interactions that are too powerful or create an NPE (Negative Play Experience). A playtest report is submitted after every play test with feed back on the piece regarding what did and didn't work and suggestions for the design.
6. Designers look at the feedback from the play test reports and adjust the designs based on that feed back. When the design is updated and approved by the other designers, it is sent back to play testing.
7. Play testing the pieces in a v-set will take months. When the time comes where we feel like a piece has been tested enough and no further changes are needed, we will mark the character as done and focus on the other pieces that need to be tested.
8. When all pieces are marked as done, the set is sent to QC. They help with fixing grammatical errors and getting the wording correct on any new abilities so that it is clear how it works within the rules for the game. When a number of QC people approve the design, the character is created by Bryan (DarkDracul) on a card layout to show how it will appear in print. If there are spacing issues or readability issues, we adjust things accordingly on the piece. When the card is ready, we send it to the printer with the rest of the set and the cards are ready to be made and the set is added to Bloomilk database so that all players can see the set. The set can be included in competitive play depending on the tournament organizers direction.

Dope