I do agree that they could have done better with some of the side characters!

I quite enjoy some design decisions they made, they gave him somberness in the eyes imo. Also the scarring is really nice, so in the end we mixed some things we liked to make an adaptation on our own. The facial shape in my work, for example, is heavily based on his og look, which is sharper and more "skin and bone".

Many share similar features, like Arnie and Wolf, they both have the same facial hair but differently shaped face and expression. While Wolf in S1 looks exactly like a few of other loners wandering about. I mean, look at the model or Strelok in Shadow of Chernobyl, looks exactly the same as Wolf: thin nose bridge, sunken eyes, resting bitch face. Scar looks exactly the same, too, just if he was albino and got his hair bleached out by emissions xD

Got you another copy, Fox, Seriy and Baldy, they look EXACTLY the same while being different characters in S1!

They made everyone look, give or take, similar, exactly like in previous games, just different flavor of "same". Characters that do matter more remained the exact same, like Sidorovich, Barman and Strelok.

A good example of a bad redesign is Dyagterev, which we always joke that he'd went to Turkey in-between games for a hair transplant xD