Thanks for the more detailed explanation, and the demo!
I also meant graphical effect, but ghost object is just how you made it transparent. What I meant was I thought it was an explosion of something, and was curious about it.
I tried the demo, and want to say that is a really awesome animation. Kirby feels extremely squishy and organic, and it's awesome.
I have 2 suggestions:
1) When he hits the fire, you see the whites of his eyes. This just looks bad, because he has no whites. I recommend doing something like this (. .) , because it achieves the same effect without making him look bad.
2) Make it so you can't just hold down the spacebar and have him keep jumping. Like so he only jumps once each time you press it.
This looks really good so far.
I'm curious, do you plan to give Kirby the ability to fly? and do you have any ideas what kind of abilities he'll be able to absorb?