I cannot say I am an expert at this thing but I will try my best to provide suggestion! These may be super long, and may sound tedious but it is mainly fiddling with dopesheet, graph editor and particle editor, so please don't feel stressed and have fun! You may consider this as a checklist and general rule to follow also.…
Your stuff kinda reminds me off Chris Bishops stuff: http://www.chrisbishop.com/fineart/ but no idea why, cool stuff I need to grab some paints sometime soon