Character melting help

Alright, so I am making a first/third person shooter and you play as the army men. (it is inspired by 3DO’s army men from the 90s) One of the weapons is a flamethrower and I want to make the death animation to be the guy melting. So when a flame of any kind hits the character/enemy I want them to melt. I know this sounds pretty complicated, but if there is any way you guys could help, or just point me in the right direction, that would be great. If not I will just stick with basic death animations.
Thanks!

Do you have any reference video of the exact effect you want to recreate?
I had a quick look but there’s a bunch of different melting effects in those and similar games

Sort of like this animation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnFc73Yn0So
But I want the character to melt into a puddle of plastic.