My idea for the next iteration: An explosion happened (building up a nice cloud of smoke) and THEN another explosion happens inside, pushing the already existing smoke away and ripping it appart.
(1) Looks a bit too organic (more like meat getting ripped) and noisy.
(2) Looks not too interesting and is a bit too equal everywhere. Need more variation and I don’t want too loose too much of the billowy smoke forms on the top.
Next version. I didn’t pay too much attention to smoke shapes - I tried to just focus on the idea (of an explosion within an explosioN) and if the shapes transport this. What do you think?
This time i tried to adjust the 2nd explosion so that it points more upward than sideward and ripping holes into the upper cloud. I think it tells the story of the 2nd inner explosion a bit better now:
Also, I’m trying to get rid of to symmetrical shapes:
Looks good man, but the shading looks a bit weird to me , i mean you’ve got the brightest spot under the
vertical cloud but it’s shaded as if the main light comes from the upper-left) And i also found out that the structure of those vertically-aligned smoke pieces is much more complex then overlaying smaller on top of bigger ones…like there’s got to be a twisting / swirling motion or smth…which is probably the hardest thing to animate 
@RandomStroke thank you! yes i reworked the lighting a bit, wasn’t finished with doing the lighting.
new version
tested a bit with colors but it doesn’t work well. i’m open for tips if you have some
Another iteration. I focused on making the core more intense and I think I like it more like now…with that intense white glow.
Lovely glow!) As far as i’ve studies explosions , it seems like those big clouds of smoke and dust come from the fireball which comes after the flash…so it starts with a flash ( ignition ) - shockwave-fireball ( that has to move upward because it’s hot ) and then come pieces that burn down, get colder, turn to smoke and got sucked by the underlying flow. I’m a total noob at it actually…still can’t get my head around this dynamics in real time…but it’s kinda what i’m talking about
Anyways, good job, keep it up:)
Thank you! I Love the motion blur version! I’ll try to add some blur to my final result as well <3
Yes, your observation is perfectly correct. If you look at the first post related my explosion you’ll see the course goal (Simon Trümpler - VFX Sketchbook - #140 by simonschreibt). And I had exactly the same questions popping into my head - usually you see either the inital blast OR the big mushroom cloud:
So, my idea was, to imagine a 2nd explosions which disrupts the one which happens just 3s before. But it’s very hard to translate this idea into an image 
Just wanted to share this with you guys. I found two anime explosions which tell the story I had in mind for my explosion as well: An explosion within another one 
Small inbetween state:
Todo
Congrats!, It´s looks awesome.
I always forget about posterize 
