This was in response to this post here, but I figured it be better suited to the tutorials forum.
Not the prettiest example but it should give you a general idea of what you are seeing when you look at an explosion. Generally there is a rupture (or ruptures) caused by building pressure where, for example, burning gasses escape very rapidly which violently widen the space they are escaping through creating an even bigger rupture that even more burning gasses can escape through and this pretty much continues until it rips the object apart ejecting all the pressure at once (an explosion).
If you look at the image
here you can get a pretty good idea of where the source of the explosions are occurring just by following the trails their rupturing is leaving. All that smoke you see is flames exhausting, dust being forced up into the air from the ground, etc. Here is a quick breakdown of the explosion's flow:
When you've got an object colliding against another or two objects colliding into each other it is going to be like so (essentially a thrown tomato):
There is a lot more to it than just that, but that should be enough to get you going in the right direction. In any case, I hope that helps.
EDIT:Here is a quick example of how you can go about coloring them. Like anything else explosions are unique, you should choose colors and H/S/V ranges that suit your game.
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