[Help] How to make Water/Ice/Bubble Effects?

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

There are many ways to convey water, ice and bubble effects. The sprites you're thinking of most likely succeed for different reasons, so your question is actually extremely vast.

My advice is that you search for what ice looks like for example, how it's formed, and how it affects various materials. From there you'll understand the basic ideas behind ice, and you'll be able to work on how to stylize it - as in, which aspects of ice you will keep to effectively represent ice. Drawing studies of ice in those regards will help you with spriting.

You could always imitate an exisiting sprite's style, which will help you understand more the style rather than the ice/water/bubble. This is the way to go if you want to emulate a look which you like.