i would love to learn more about what makes or breaks the design of an icon. most of my art expertise is self taught so i don't really know any objective rules on designing that sort of thing
when i first posted my comic i had this as my icon
but i was added as a staff pick and i PANICKED so i had to make an icon people might actually be willing to click on lol
Just like everyone else, I decide on whether or not I check out comics based on the art in the icon (or in otherwords I agree with A...)
The art of anything can make or break it for me, even if i find the story itself to be incredibly intriguing. It's a tad bit ridiculous how picky I am with the art style of something, crossing over into excessive. Ignoring how absolutely fickle I am with art, I like icons that, if it shows the mc, it shows their personality in some way? or conveys the tone of the story, if its long-form. Icons that are just headshots with a blank faced character are kinda bland IMO (this doesnt count SOLs or anything along those lines that are intentionally meant to be quick doodles or Other. this is mainly stories that are intended to be long form)
It's hard to say what really goes into a 'good' icon seeing as the space provided is too small to do anything that other General Design Rules would apply to (composition, values, etc.) frankly I just think as long as it Fits with the genre it should be fine, a silly doodle slice of life would be perfectly fine with a simplistic icon (as long as it matches the art style of the comic.) You can do little things here and there to make it stand out from others (such as coloring and etc) but beyond that, there is a Lot of limitations.
Speaking of limitations, I think also trying to deviate from the square resolution is a good way to catch some eyes? Kinda like the icon for A Better Place, which iirc immediately caught my eye as the series uses a circle instead of the square format.
Frankly, I just chose my icons based on panels that I really liked how they turned out like this one, for example, which is the icon for my main comic. Beyond just liking how the panel turned out, I think it also represents what the first few parts of the story are building up to lol...
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I'm not the best with color expert, but I can share my quick, blind, initial reaction when viewing the icons:
Life of Panda icon: Super simple, which I think is a good thing. It gives me a feeling of light-heartedness, and is very much a slice-of-life feel. It's a good representation of the content.
Of Fairies and Ghosts: Colorful, yet not in your face about it. 3 characters on the icon spell a long-form. I wouldn't consider this icon cluttered and the character color scheme immediately gives the feel of their 3 different personalities. Definitely not an action series, but having the characters facing different directions is a good touch. I will say that in a wall of icons, this may be tough to catch my eye, but that's always the toughest challenge of ANY icon.
Nice switch. The first icon did NOT match the series feel. After seeing the second icon, my impression switched to a more action-based fantasy. My eye is drawn to the black hand and his focus to the left. "What's he attacking? Let's click to find out." Very earthy colors. My one critique would be that there's a bit of empty space between his hand and head. I take it that this was snipped from a pre-existing graphic? Maybe try filling in the space a little more, even if it means adjusting the hand more into view since it's sorta cropped off. (Now that I think about, there's quite a bit of empty space in my own icon ^_^;)
Putting it out there, a good rule of thumb on this thread would be to refrain from giving negative feedback on someone's specific icon unless explicitly asked for. This is to prevent someone from pulling a random creator's icon and pointing out its flaws or making someone an example of "what's a bad icon". My initial post is me putting myself out there, so of course I welcome feedback for myself ^_^
I'll say B, mainly because for me, keeping it simple has worked out fairly well, especially on the webcomic list(It's literally just the title of the comic on a white BG). I'm sure a great icon is important in some way, but with no metrics to track its effectiveness(I'm a numbers guy), I just feel like it pays to keep it simple when everyone else is trying to impress.
When I mentioned this before, my concern was the colours are very light and the contrast low. The lineart is also not black, so if the size is smaller I personally might have struggled with seeing anything other than 3 figures.
The good thing about it is it gives you the right idea about the art in the series and it effectively communicates t has 3 main characters.
You can improve it by:
- increasing the contrast
- zooming in on one of the figures/ or designing a new icon/ so it's clearer
- bringing more dark into it (like black linear) if it's comfortable for you
Anyways, this is only a well-wishing advice, feel free not to take it if you fit it doesn't fit you or your series. 
When I made the icon for my comic (pictured below) I was mainly just thinking that I wanted something really bright, like you said. I've noticed that, at least for myself personally, someone could have an amazingly well-drawn icon in b&w or dark colors, but I won't find it eye-catching, yet someone could have a mediocre drawing in primary colors and I always see it. And while I'm no expert, I think my icon's pretty good, because whenever my comic is updated it gets a lot of clicks from people seeing it in the 'fresh' section. Also, I think you're so right about the background being filled with a bright color instead of just being white. Great post XD
thank you for the advice! i agree w your point about the empty space - maybe i should go back and change the angle of the arm a bit ?
my new icon definitely matches the tone of the comic much, much better
My series6 debuted recently, but the style changed to fit the story. I find it difficult to keep my icon simple without making it boring.
The first is the one I uploaded, but I'm not sure if the second is slightly better?
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I think the second one is better. I can see the style more clearly and the shapes you've used look dynamic and interesting. It's simple and effective. Nice!
I think people sometimes forget that the name of their comic is displayed directly beneath the icon itself and try to squeeze the title in there out of worry. Don't do it people! We can see the name just fine, save your precious icon space.
To me, the right icon is a definite improvement. Just by omitting the title, it gives you enough space to include her neck and shoulder, which lets us know so much more of the character. There's more focus on the characters expression now that it's centered and no longer competing with the title, and the motion created by the hair is increased. Even as a tiny icon, it looks good.
I just switched my series icon from a half body shot to a more dynamic facial shot of the main character (taken straight out of the comic because I happened to like the panel) and it does seem like a more dynamic avatar could be pulling more views as I update since I've gotten new subs with both updates I've done with the new icon.
And then there ofcourse is the fact of just finding the icon look that will attract the kind of people who are likely to be interested in your comic. I don't think everyone will be interested in the same kind of an icon, but when you get sub-ratio compared to views going up then something is going into right direction at least.
Right after reading this topic I changed the Icon of my series1 to this.
The most dynamic icon I could find.
i'll wait on next update to see the difference.
But I already got a bunch of subscribers which means it works... i think.
Hope it doesn't spoil too much for the readers and encourage them to check the series out.
Time will tell. Not afraid to change again If needed. 
I'm very curious to know whether or not folks would yes-click based on my current icons. I feel like they're good, but I also know other peoples' insight might be helpful! They're both pulled straight from the comics rather than creating a unique image not seen in the comics.
1 month later
I would click the second one because it's really interesting, mysterious with the monster lurking in the background, and you immediately see it's fantasy and more on the adventure/battling side of it.
The first......not so much. while it definitely needs skill to make what seems like a 3D-model, the potential reader has literally NO idea what this is about. Maybe just a punk girl in high school. Maybe a gay bar where she's the bar tender. Or it's sci-fi but we don't know because the background is literally blank which is quite odd if you already have such a very detailed/textured character (since it is sci-fi, a space background would provide a bit of context). Like this, it looks a lot like "I was playing Sims4 and cut out the characters but kinda don't know what to do with them."
I think a smaller scale that only shows the head might be more interesting as well, also if you shift it more to one side, it probably looks a bit more dynamic.
I hope that's not too negative as a critique but uh-huh yeah.
15 days later
It's funny that I should see this thread today because I've just spent the past few days figuring out how to make my icon appealing and eye-catching. I hope I can offer some insight to my thought process and receive some suggestions.
This is my first take on my icon. I liked it as an individual piece, but I wasn't sure if it stood enough, and I didn't think it conveyed the tone of my story. It looks more light-hearted and fantastical rather than the slightly more action-packed, richer, and psychological tone I was going for. From here, I painted over the icon into this:
Although I liked the lighter one better, I thought this one popped more with the contrasting colors, and portrayed the tone better with the harsh colors and darkened, averted eyes.
So I made some in-betweens of these two icons and put them to the test. I screenshotted a page of popular/trending comics and photoshopped my icons over existing ones.
I avoided putting any of mine in the middle because I think that's where the eye naturally goes. After looking at this, I thought that the red background made icon #2 too busy and the face was too dark and unreadable from a glance, and that I quite liked how the faded yellow of #1 looked amongst the others. For now, I think I prefer either the uppermost or lowermost icon in this test picture. Of course, all of this would change depending on which stories show up around yours. Maybe I went a little far by doing this, but what minimal training in graphic design I had was itching at me.
Some feedback would be nice, although I may redesign the icon entirely again to better match my story (which is unpublished and will probably stay that way for a few months at least as I work on it).
The icon is what draws your attention--if a person has put a lot of thought and effort into their icon, then it's a good sign they put a lot of thought and effort into other areas in their comic. However, this isn't a 100% guarantee of the comic being of good quality. So, I'm somewhere between A and B on this one.
Icons are tricky, but a lot of the readers of my comic3 say they thought the icon was cool and clicked on it. I'm not entirely sure what my team and I did right by it but here you have it:
The thought process in designing our icon:
- We featured the main character, and the duality of her roles.
- We wanted to show a little bit of the world
- We wanted it to show off the art style of our comic
- We decided it was kind of redundant to put the title in the thumbnail image because it's so small and the title's already below the comic in the line up anyway.
Actually: Okay here's a pet peeve of mine. I'm not a fan when icons have a crap load of words in them, or really "whimsical" font types for the logo they throw in. The size of the icon is so small, why waste that space on text when all the important information is already presented for you else where? Also comic icons where you can see the text bubbles. Every now and then for my comic I'll make an episode icon where the text is seen, and it's like...eye twitchingly frustrating for me. No one can read it. No one can see it. While it might have an interesting point or tagline being said, it doesn't matter if it's there if no one can read it.
^^^^^^^ ALSO THIS x10000000000