Hiya!

So, I'm working on a competitive puzzle game that involves dropping gems which, if you've completed a set, are supposed to dissolve away. Unfortunately for me, I haven't done a huge amount of sprite art and pixel artists are (justifiably) a little too expensive for this poor student to pay for every last little detail. I was hoping I might get some advice on the dissolving effect as it stands at the moment. My primary concerns are to keep it looking fluid, fairly quick, and smooth.

Here it is:


The gems themselves are 64x64 and to allow for the upward dissolve I have been using a 64x128 size for this effect. It is currently 12 frames (13 in this gif since I included the gem before the effect begins).

Off the top of my head the only thing that really stands out to me to try is to use alpha channel blending to create semi-transparent trails under each segment as it drifts up.

P.S. : Don't judge me for the gem, I know it looks horrible it's really just filler til I can pursue an affordable artist that might actually know how to make a gem.

Any help you can offer would be great, thanks in advance!

Quick edit to illustrate the idea

nono I am not talking about frame rate, just the actual speed an object moves per frame! Once the blocks are separated they could move 1 px in the first frame, 3 px in the second frame, 6 px in the 3rd frame and 12 px in the 4th frame for example!
In my edit the frame rate stays the same :)