Vector Smoke

Since doing the guy smoking ive been trying to create vector smoke but i just cant get it right, smoke is simple todo but i want this to be different and to have an unusual look and feel.
I started by doing my own smoke but this turned out to look terrible..

And so instead of thinking i could do it straight away, no problem, i started to look at other smoke vectors..

I liked this one because it was different and it gave me an idea to write "AMSTERDAM" in smoke but it wasnt what i wanted.

This kind of smoke was the most popular when researching but it has gradients and opacity levels which none of the mural has and so it wouldnt fit.

This image really caught my eye and i thought this would work perfectly! It is a bit tribal but if i do it my own way i think it wont look as tribal. I decided to go with this tribal looking design but when it came to actually doing this i felt it wouldnt work as well as i thought, the problem wasnt in the window but when it comes out of the window, i want it to be not to bulgy and thick because it wouldnt match up with the slim waterfall at the other side.

As you can see i only did a rough design of what it would be but this was because i started to dislike the idea... Back to the drawing board.

After being constantly annoyed by this smoke i went back to research and thought they must be something out there to help me with this and to my luck i did, i found these two images..

When i saw the first one i came up with the idea to use colour instead of boring, dirty grey, this way it makes the smoke seem cleaner and better. I couldnt use the circle idea as i didnt want to copy but i then found the second image and i love the shapes and curves of the vector lines and so i combined the two together..

I think it looks much better than normal smoke and it relates to marijuana more, the unusual curve at the top where it looks like its spreading out was an accident as i did something wrong and that is what came out of it never the less im taking credit and i like the smoke finally!