Explosion Icon

[Skizzaltix]

Hi.

I was messing around painting explosions today, and I came up with this... There's still something that bothers me about it, but I can't find it myself, and there seem to be a surprisingly small number of tutorials which detail the drawing of explosions (Shockingly! ...Or I could be looking in entirely the wrong place) :/
Anyway, if anyone can see where I'm going wrong, or knows of a good guide, I'd really appreciate any help!
Thanks!

[Turuk]

I do believe you have the fire/smoke parts a bit convoluted. I PMed you with some references for explosions in order to give you a better idea.

[Skizzaltix]

Thanks for the fast reply, Turuk...
I've got a slightly better idea of what I'm aiming for now, and I think I'll give it another shot later today... After I've slept.

[Ranger M]

Also it's way way too dark, use the lightest colours that you can


EDIT: to clarify, I mean that the lightest colour you use should be the lightest colour you can produce in GIMP (you use GIMP I think, don't you?)

[Skizzaltix]

Yes, I do. I'm too broke to afford Photoshop
I definitely see what you're saying--The smoke especially looks very flat.
Thanks!

Edit: Complete redraw. I definitely like this one more, but obviously it's still not too great. Thoughts?

[bonehead11]

Looks nice try to add a little more fire, because all I see is smoke and some particles. And those particles, they look like thorns less than something flying in the air , try to give them balistic trajectory. Otherwise its really good especially the smoke.

[Skizzaltix]

Hmm... At first I was going for a really fiery explosion type of thing, but when I think about it, a crude bomb would kick up a lot of dust and stuff without too much fire, wouldn't it?
Anyway, I'll take that into consideration when I do another redraw... Thanks!

[Darker_Dreams]

you might look at the fireball-impact frames in the core images directory for some hints as to how things should look.

[Turuk]

When drawing an explosion, ask yourself a few questions.

What is being exploded?
This will let you know if there will be particles, their size, direction, and the like.

What is being used to cause the explosion?
Give you an idea of the shape of the explosion, size of the cloud, what it should look like. The amount of fiery effects, or lack thereof.

Where is the explosion happening?
Underground (shell impacts, goes a bit into the dirt, explodes), Ground, Air, Water.


I know that is a bit vague, but an explosion of a shell hitting the grass will cause the dirt to fountain up as well as a minor bit of fire on impact and a great deal of smoke.

A bomb hitting a structure causes fire to shoot out the sides and rise up from the point of impact, a mushroom/roundish cloud, and a bunch of debris sent out on a horizontal level. Not as much goes flying up as you would think.

[TheJM]

The main problem I see is that the fire is really straight, like spikes sticking out of a mace or something. Actually, there's some grey spiky-like things too. Perhaps try more of a rounded approach?

[Turuk]

Possibly more of the effect you are going for.