I checked Player.log, 0 errors when creating a new game or loading an old save. I'll also mention that I checked if the images would load by replacing the image_id of any character in the save file (well, this method worked when I wanted to replace the image of one character with another that had scw_id). After switching and loading a save, when checking this character's image in "View Contacts", the head image only displayed a black square with a red question mark. During an in-game encounter anywhere, game replaced the character's image with an image with similar character attributes.
In this case, I did another test. I removed all scw subdirectories from the "characters" directory, leaving "Defaults" and the "gar1" directory with your character in it . And I ran SCW.exe. I got this error:
View attachment 3353765
There are usually only 13 characters in the "Defaults" directory. Which would mean that the game completely ignores the "gar1" directory with your character.
There is a line in the config.dat file:
but you mentioned that your character worked for you without modifying this file, so honestly I don't know why it doesn't work for me. Oh well...