I Hate Oasises Now.

For the background, it was suggested I have an open desert to have the cobra in it's natural "habitat" and whatnot. Here are a couple attempts at making sand...




I knew that since my illustrator skill is pretty darn awful, I entertained the thought of livetracing the foilage and cutting out some shapes produced to make it look more simplistic like the rest of the piece. It didn't really work since palm trees are so textured...



In updates towards the main piece, I decided to make the spitting head more cobra-like and the hood more like a hose. Also, the scales/hose texture can only be placed one shape at a time. Using it as a pattern did not work... :/

Mid screenshots and more descriptions to add later.