I need to upload this one. Finally. Otherwise it'll just haunt my life forever. I've had this working in Houdini for months but never got around to showing it off with a load of different examples. So, here are 3. I wanted to do an explosion too, but never got one looking as good as I wanted it.
Thanks to the joy of Houdini, you can input any object or animation into it and it'll lego-ify it.
Was a lot of fun. Shout out to Mr. Potts who started this one before me but sent me down the rabbit hole. His looks awesome, check it out - and it's got cool little grate pieces and stuff. Talented dude - https://www.artstation.com/artwork/oA5JYO
annoying little 'caught particles'
simulation with clumping/ glue in an attempt to make it look more organic
controllable density