Energy, electricity and explosions

I initially classified explosions together with fire, but I felt it might work a bit more similarly to energy and electricity. I found some really useful pixel art tutorials by Pedro Medeiros and even though they are for pixel art, their fundamentals can still be carried over (there were also other fx tutorials too):

Electricity tutorial by Pedro Medeiros

My previous case studies didn't have much appeal-related fx for energy and electricity so I used other sources. I did some studies to break it down and how it interacts with the environtment and characters interacting with it. I analysed a scene from the trailer of 'A Certain Scientific Railgun', an anime where the protagonist has electric-based powers. I identified how the electricity moved and how it flickers. There is a certain element of randomness that helps convey the intensity of the scene:

I also looked at the Dead Cells: Rise of the Giant trailer. I noticed the art style was slightly different from the original Dead Cells trailer, but the appeal of the character remained, the hectic fx helped exaggerate the reaction of the character. 

Note how the explosion make the camera rumble and the electric blast adds a rim light on the character.

I also looked at a few Spiderverse explosion screenshots, and looked at how the debris and smoke moved around.

For the electric energy, I experimented with a few colours, and found that the colours influenced the mood and personality of Moom:

Pure, powerful, solar energy?

Evil, malicious, forbidden energy? (Like Star Wars light sabers)

Sci-fi, digital energy?

Magical, neon energy?

In the end I stuck with blue as it a cool neutral, and provides interesting contrast from the orange and yellows of the fire and explosion. I tried to apply what I learnt to exaggerate and emphasis Moom's actions to give him appeal:

What went well:

• Just observing the case studies frame by frame made it significantly easier to animate and time it,
• This was really fun to animate,
• Both effects involved lots of lighting effects, adding rim lighting integrated the effects with the character better.

What could be improved:

• The crouch pose of Moom with electricity could be exaggerated further (but the focus is on the effects),
• The explosion could be improved with camera rumble for more immersion.