BOOM!!!

[Zizka]

Hello guys,

My first attempt at an explosion:



My reference, from Metal Slug (couldn't tell you which one however):


So yeah, it's pretty hard  .

As usual, rip it apart! 

[Echo-07]

Hey Zizka,

I'm new to pixel art myself and I'm gearing up to post some of my own work for critique. But as a fellow artist, I can give you some general pointers based on your work and the reference material you provided.

1. Your explosion doesn't seem to get very bright, despite you using bright colors in 4 frames out of the 11. Perhaps add more frames for the flash and explosion part.

2. The reference you provided seems like it's a shell landing and exploding, based on the upward thrust of the explosion. I'm imagining it's a mortar shell. I think making your explosion have a bigger upward thrust would make it more dramatic and add impact.

3. Perhaps add some ground particles being pushed away by the explosion. That seems to add to the impact of the reference explosion you provided.

I hope these suggestions help. I think your first attempt is a strong one and it shows you studied the reference material well. Right now it works as a small explosion, from a grenade or some sort of small explosive. Keep up the good work man, I like all the work you've posted so far.   

[HezaKey]

I was thinking that at that scale, the dust cloud looks a lot like the smoke cloud, so it makes an weird effect of smoke being where it shouldn't.
maybe the dust could be smaller or spread out slighting?
The fire stage also seems to terminate rather quickly.  I'd switch it so the fire lasts longer and the smoke terminates faster.

Animations not my thing though, so that's all I can recommend.

[Lanarky]

The animation You've made so far looks pretty good. However, it's looking closer to the smaller plumes of smoke in the reference animation. I find that an explosion begins bright, and makes it's way to black. White > Yellow > Orange > Red > Black. The hotter the area, the brighter it is. So as the flames die away, it'll get darker until it's made of smoke and fades away. Other than that, I recommend a bright flash near the start, and make the overall animation closer to a red-orange color, using yellow as anti-aliasing for white in the flash.

Hope this helps! 

[r1k]

the problem I see with it is that in yours the flames pause their upward movement for a frame or 2 before the smoke continues to go upwards.  IN the metal slug explosion everything has a continuous upward movement before fading out.

[Ymedron]

I remember reading this tutorial years back on explosions, perhaps it could be of help:
http://zack-sr.deviantart.com/art/Explosion-basics-tutorial-65735280

[Zizka]

I was thinking that at that scale, the dust cloud looks a lot like the smoke cloud, so it makes an weird effect of smoke being where it shouldn't.
maybe the dust could be smaller or spread out slighting?

I’m not sure I understand what you’re trying to say here.

The fire stage also seems to terminate rather quickly.  I'd switch it so the fire lasts longer and the smoke terminates faster.

I agree that the fire sequence is too short. I’ve added two extra frames to make it longer and smoother and I do think it looks better now.
Thank you, Milokey.

White > Yellow > Orange > Red > Black. The hotter the area, the brighter it is. So as the flames die away, it'll get darker until it's made of smoke and fades away. 

I changed the first few frames in the color you’ve mentioned.

ther than that, I recommend a bright flash near the start, and make the overall animation closer to a red-orange color, using yellow as anti-aliasing for white in the flash.

You thought it wasn’t close enough to red-orange? Maybe you meant at the beginning of the animation because towards the end it gets pretty red.

@r1k:
True ‘dat.

Thank you!

So I’ve tried to implement all of your criticism. Basically, the flash is longer and everything drifts upwards. Also, I’ve tweaked the colors based on what Lanarky said.

The pace seems a bit off but other than that I’d say it’s better.

Before:
   After:

[Lanarky]

Looks a lot better now!    I really like how it turned it out!

[HarveyDentMustDie]

Maybe this will help you.

CrazyMLC: Okay. Here are some updated versions. I also decided to make the big, main explosion less realistic than it's previously been... Curlicues!

And in the environment:

Any better?

Current version looks kind a strange to me. Flames goes up while smoke stays down, it doesn't look natural.

[NaCl]

To get some snap in the explosion, you need to have a LOT of movement in a very few number of frames. Your explosion is building up too slow. Start very big and fast and bright and then let it shrink and taper off.