Cool!
Various degrees of burning detail are interesting.
Having some static elements can add alot of focus and emphasizes the dragon
On the other hand having more parts burning gives it more motion and emphasizes the fire.
I like both face designs.
You could use either one or both for different attacks.
If you want to go really crazy chomp his jaws!
There are different ways of creating and representing special effects.
Iconic, stylized, realistic, etc all have their own look and appeal.
Elements have different viscosity.
This is usually a term used for liquid but can be used as an animation term for all materials.
In nature viscosity is the thickness of a material and it affects many variables about how it changes over time under various forces.
Artistically viscosity helps you give meaning and motion to an effect as it changes each frame.
We can simplify many properties into single ideas:
Volume - overall amount of space, shape and form, mass, 2D and 3D space.
Depth is commonly shown with overlapping shapes, colors, edges etc.
Motion - direction change, speed up, slow down.
Stuff moves.
It goes places.
Resolve - how the material clusters together, breaks down, and dissipates.
Usually energy dissipates and changes over time/distance.
Style - the shape design of individual clusters and particles.
natural vs stylized.
There are different parts of the effect to draw as it changes.
Water has waves, sheets, ripples, beads, bubbles foam etc.
Fire has flames, sparks, swirls, smoke etc.
This crap lets you plan out an animation.
Draw a series of arrows representing forces.
In practice it is similar to using Line of Action for other animation techniques.
Some old drawings of mine:
Mapping lines of action to a photo:
As the material passes thru these arrows how does it change?
That's for you to decide.
