Visualisation Project 2 - Concept Ideas

During the walk through of my environment i plan to have several things happening. I plan to use particle flow to create things such as rain, shell explosions.
Using this feature i have been able to create a few explosions. However i am not sure as to the best way to texture these explosions (as can been seen in the videos below).
This is the type of style i am looking for.



My attempts...


A very poor attempt at texturing the explosion.


If anyone knows any way to texture this, or has any tutorials please let me know :)