I spent hours of hours in the Particle Designer App to generate a more unique look. Far away from this cheap done-in-a-second effects popping up every day in their library. Hell, that was a long way to go but it pays off i think.
The old effects mostly looked like fireworks with clean and shiny sparks. No debris and no dirt. In addition i more and more disliked the bright overlayed look of all the explosions. By changing the blending effects, the particle sprites and the particle behavier, timing and all that stuff i came to this:
Click here for a 2048x1536 shot from the iPad Retina version
Hope you like the improvements and thanks for any feedback!