HD Soldat Icon (need feedback!)

[L[0ne]R]

We needed a better Soldat icon for Steam, so I thought I might as well remake the whole thing in higher res while I'm at it.
Let me know if you find any errors or whatever else you think needs improvement.

[Viral]

The "Soldat" text is unreadable in lower res. Not to mention it's useless in an icon, because u have the name under it written anyway (like - on desktop u know what i mean)

[Sigfrid]

The "Soldat" text is unreadable in lower res. Not to mention it's useless in an icon, because u have the name under it written anyway (like - on desktop u know what i mean)

I do not think it will be necessary to remove the name "soldat" because in the original it always had,it looks good to me

[homerofgods]

This is how it would look on my desktop, using large icons in win10
https://i.imgur.com/H1xjGKK.png

[duz]

I really LOVE everything except the text. Somehow it doesn't match the image. Totally agree with Viral, removing the text would make it better.
You can make an icon based on text or based on symbol. Apparently you can't do both at the same time due icon's limitations. Type "game icons desktop" on Google images and compare. Makes sense.

gj L[0ne]R

[Moroes]

Yeah, I gotta agree with Viral, the text is useless in this case. You might consider putting the "S" on the flag - using just "S" as the acronym or maybe avoid using letters at all.
The soldier is shinin' like a star while the background seems kinda blank. I am not really sure bout the yellow outline. The gun barrel is yellow too, for some reason. The outline kinda makes the fella stand out which makes the icon look less homogeneous. It probably follows the idea of making soldat more pleasant for the eye, more "cartoonish". Not sure if we're there already, map remakes might get released eventually but I don't see gostek getting new fancy costume anytime soon. I'd use darker colours which would be closer to actual soldat feeling - more serious.
Let me get back to the yellow colour. What made you choose yellow as the ideal colour for the flag? I mean PM and HTF are amazing modes, unfortunately not as popular as CTF nowadays. I'd even accept MM's face there or polish flag to represent the game butt yellow. It could be either red or blue which would be totally fine. Actually some kind of red-blue transition or even themed flag would be suitable.
As for the weapon, it seems like the soldier is brushing his armpit with that. Was that an intention? Dunno. Those bullet jackets could also use a more copperish look and some of them even few darker pixels to actually look empty.

Overall it is an honourable attempt at making a fresh soldat icon which could represent the game in the future. I am glad someone is actually working on this. Good effort!

[Mayhem]

Great work! But I will change the text to something simpler. I would remove details like these white stripes, use wider outline and probably change colour to less bright.

[Savage]

It makes me feel like I would gonna play Teeworlds, I would make it more serious 

[darDar]

I think you should remove the background + the text. make the player bigger: so the player would look more oustanding.
There's also too much yellow in their imo, I think it 'd be good to make the jet's more orange/red. If you removed the text, you could make the jet fire look a bit more clearer.
Flag could be blue. Mb add basic face expressions or a cigar..

[machina]

Looks really nice. There are few things I would find improving though.

One is the text that has been apparently taken from what we used to have for a long time. I think you should remake it. The colors are fine but I'd rather have a smooth gradient there instead of these "lines". They don't look well as you scale the logo down (maybe it looks well on your retina but most people don't have so many pixels per inch on their screen).

Smaller icons probably shouldn't keep the text at all and leave just a soldier. Or no text at all as it's been proposed by others?

Mb add basic face expressions or a cigar..

I think the expressionless face is okay. It won't be a trouble when it comes to lower resolutions.

[Shoozza]

nice icon!

Here is some feedback:

1) text doesn't fit
2) colors are too vibrant - imagine adding as a image in a map
3) maybe add more texture to it so it feels a bit more rough and less like a comic
4) smaller resolutions don't work maybe just the player without background and text?

[daaw]

Good enough is good enough.

Perfectionism is a bad thing.

The only question is, is it better than the old one? - yes. Done.

Just maybe if improve the downscaled versions...

[L[0ne]R]

Thanks for the responses so far!

1. Text on the icon:
I did it that way because that's how the original icon was done, though I agree with your points - it's definitely not needed at lower resolutions and is redundant. I think it looks good on 256x256 and 128x128 (the 2 biggest sizes) and adds a nice bit of color, so I might leave it there if I don't come up with anything to replace it.

2. Flag color:
I chose yellow flag because it is team-neutral, progressive and inclusive, and does not represent the bigoted views of assuming someone's team! (/s)
But seriously, I think yellow flag is a good neutral option that also gives me the excuse to use "Major" colors on the soldier instead of blue/red uniform.

3. More detail to face:
I'll see what I can do, though the issue is that all that detail will get lost at lower resolutions at best, or even add too much "noise" at worst. I might add mouth and a cigar, we'll see.

4. Colors:
I'll tone down the yellow glow on the barrel, but the outline is necessary to separate the soldier from the background. Before I added the outline the soldier blended in with the background too much and was hard to distinguish at lower res. I'll make the background a bit more vibrant though, and perhaps tone down the colors on the soldier to be less bright.

As for the weapon, it seems like the soldier is brushing his armpit with that. Was that an intention? Dunno.

I wanted to keep the weapon at around chest-level while at the same time keeping AK's proportions at least somewhat realistic, so the stock does end up being long enough to go under the armpit a bit. Not sure what I can do about it other than making it comically short.

maybe add more texture to it so it feels a bit more rough and less like a comic

Good idea, I'll do it for the bigger versions though modern versions of Windows seem to only use the highest-res version and 16x16 while ignoring any sizes in-between. This may cause the texture to distort the image too much when scaled down.

colors are too vibrant - imagine adding as a image in a map

Well, the image is intended to be used as an icon, not as a scenery. If someone wants to add it as a map - they'll just have to edit it to suit their needs.

[homerofgods]

I like yellow as the neutral color, maybe you can make the outline thinner or soften the edge so it looks like natural light from the flare.
A mouth and/or a cigar would be enough

[L[0ne]R]

Ehh, well, this will have to do. I did what I could, but it's been proving increasingly difficult to find time and/or motivation to work on this, so consider this v1.0. If anyone's up to it - feel free to improve it however you can and perhaps it'll make it in one of the future releases.

Tried adding a cigar, but it looked way too confusing at lower resolutions so I scrapped it.

[machina]

Ehh, well, this will have to do. I did what I could, but it's been proving increasingly difficult to find time and/or motivation to work on this, so consider this v1.0. If anyone's up to it - feel free to improve it however you can and perhaps it'll make it in one of the future releases.

This v1.0 will do fucking well!

Tried adding a cigar, but it looked way too confusing at lower resolutions so I scrapped it.

Smoking is bad for health so we shouldn't promote smoking anyway.

Ah, but there's a terrible mistake on it! The guy on picture uses AK-74 which is totally out of use nowadays. Should have been Barrett

[Ygrek Starmagedon]

Heyy, that's pretty good!
Maybe someone would make it Soldat's Steam group avatar?