Different artists 😔 Valeri's artist drew the UI and promotional art for the game, and she drew it before I had secured Abeni's current sprite. I was in a rush to have her sprite work done as there'd been a long gap between Gnarl and Abeni's updates, and am looking to redo the art (for a variety of reasons, not just the one you brought up although that's a big one) once I can find an artist within the game's limited budget (which is just whatever I can find to pay).
My ideal artist ended up being way, way out of budget (totally fair on her part just deeply unfortunate) and I ended up working with an artist I wasn't familiar with so I wasn't as involved as I usually am (contrasted with Valerian and Gnarl's artists, who are both good friends of mine). When I was seeking Abeni's art, it was in a weird time of year when a lot of the artist I was looking at were simply not open for commission or too professional for me to afford. It had been so long between updates that I went with someone I could find that had any experience drawing black folks (another big problem as I was going through different portfolios was a variety of artists with no example pieces of anyone but white people).
I like Abeni's current sprite art in an objective sense where I think the sprite is very pretty, but my ideal art would be more of a combination between the banner art and the sprite art. My fault for not being as assertive as I could have been and not understanding the commission process as thoroughly as I could have, and will ideally be fixed as soon as her next update, or as late as final release.
Thanks for asking, though !! It's been a weight on my mind for a while.