designing intensifies (Patreon)

Doing a thing for my GW2 server, we have this official artwork as inspo for a new discord icon. Showing it for comparison and to let you guys know that I'm using refs.

So I've been pretending to be a designer this whole evening. It's fun. There's a striking difference and I feel retarded 8'D No skill or knowledge, only intuition "if this looks alright". I took a crash course design 101, googled some fonts, played around with ideas.. Presenting you the results in chronological order. They're improving.. 

Current stage. Icon obviously should look good/readable in smaller sizes.

Edit: imgur album with final animated versions. Reminder, they're for my GW2 server discord so please no touchy, only look :P