Bitten by the sidescroller bug...

[CrazyMLC]

Well, I would imagine the smoke would inherit the velocity of the projectile, meaning it would fly over to the left. Also, most explosions make big shockwaves, so the smoke would be subject to a lot of force, and remember, hot air rises. I'd imagine this plasma smoke (HUZZAH!) would be super heated, so it would also be rising pretty quickly.

The last thing I dislike about the smoke is that is seems to be a lot of blocks of smoke compacted together, smoke is a gas, so it could be seen as a large solid object with parts separating off of it.
(My best example I have on hand):

(Hooray for 3 year old easytoon animation!)

[Howard Day]

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?

[WM]

That smoke is pretty washed out; unless it would go against the specific garaphical style you're working with, I suggest putting some darker purple in there (particularly near the end of the explosion).

[ptoing]

That is true. Explosion smoke usually is very dark, pretty much black.

That said the explosions look really cool, tho I have to say the small lighter stuff you have in front of it at the bottom does nothing for me, I'd like to see how it looks without that.

[Conzeit]

all this stuff is looking amazing....really incredible, you're actually making me feel pretty obsolete O_O

I agree about the darker explosion smoke, also if there's any way you could have swirls of smoke as the smoke fades away it will strenghten the effect.

The projectile is the one that needs most help, I would suggest you make it pulse instead of throwing all those particle backwards...think of hotaru's projectile (alt link) in Garou Mark Of the wolves.....

This is slight but I think the way the smoke in the spider's smoke effect also goes too fast from white to dark gray, it looks amateur compared to your energy projectile impact explosion

[Howard Day]

WM: Yeah, good call. I was trying for a more whimsical explosion feel...but that obviously wasn't working.
ptoing: Well, I didn't go all the way black, but I went much darker. A also minimized the white bits in the foreground.
I've also spent hours dicking around with GraphicsGale, trying to get it to interpret the alpha in my exported frames properly. It seems an utter crapshoot - sometimes it will work fine, with no tweaking whatsoever, but sometimes I simply cannot get it to recognize any color but pure white as the transparent color. Which screws up the hotspots on the explosions. I apologize for the anomaly, but I am at my wits end on how to fix the darn thing.
Conceit:Thanks, man. Here's an updated version of the projectile...

And I also did another idle animation - although this is more of a "taunt" animation... I imagine this being accompanied by a loud electronic roar.
And the new anim in a sequence:
Thoughts?

[CrazyMLC]

Smoke looks much better. Taunt animation is kick-ass.

[alspal]

The first explosion is looking a lot better. I'm not sure about how it contract's after expanding - doesn't make much sense to me? Or do explosions actually do that? 

[Jakten]

Yeah I think when an explosion dies out it usually continues to expand or rise unless it is full of debris then it will sink down with some smoke still rising.

I think it looks okay though, usually when something explodes the smoke doesn't dissipate very fast and he can't keep the smoke on screen for very long because it will be distracting. I think it might look better if it dissipated outwards though, possibly rolling upwards.

Some reference
Another with falling debris

[micintexp]

May I ask a question so all of these are made from GraphicsGale O.O?

Thats so damn awesome for making it with such a program :O