Many people have asked how I make my cartoony gun-flares, so I thought I'd take the time to sit down and finally type out how this is done in case anyone wishes to use this method.

Made with Adobe Photo-Shop (you may be able to do this with gimp, but I don't know).

Here is the finished product:

I'll go through this step by step.

Step 1: Take the picture. (Har har)

Just animate some shot with your character shooting. In the desired flare-frame, shine a light on your character from the direction the gun is firing. I like to use red light, because it looks cartoon like. However if you with to be more realistic, shine a more yellow regular torch/flashlight on it, and mentally replace every time I say red with your chosen color appropriately.

Step 2: Add a red spot.

IMPORTANT: create a new layer first.
Just take the paint tool, set it to normal with a brush with faded edges, set it to the appropriate size, and click at the end of the gun three times.

Step 3: Add the white spot.

Same thing with the last step, but change the color to white and click just once.

Step 4: Smudge.

Use the smudge tool several times to make a flare shape. It's quite simple.
And make sure you have created a new layer before adding the flares like I mentioned in the second step, or else you will stretch the image in the background, and that just looks bad.  He he.
Now save your image as a JPG.

Step 5: Lens Flare.

Open the thing back up, and add a lens flare by clicking "Filter" then the "Render" sub-folder, and select lens flare, just put it on the gun flare, and select the size you like best.
Then use the Dodge Tool with a large brush with faded edges to brighten the flare and a tiny bit of the surrounding area. Then the same thing with the brush tool set to color to ad a bit of extra red.
(This entire step may be left out if you wish, as the flare looks okay without it, but it's still nice)

Step 6: Mini-flare.

In every frame after the big flare, make a mini-flare by putting a bit of white at the end of the gun, adding some red color, then brighten with the dodge tool.

And so concludes my explanation for my flares.
I hope this was somehow useful of enlightening for you. And I hope you use it in your films.
Thanks for reading.

Please feel free to ask me about anything which is unclear, critique my flares, or tell me how these may be improved.