To make the sand look dead and sterile I suggest you try a combination of drab and pale colours. Try to avoid any warm colours such as bubonic brown or graveyard earth. A warm colour gives an impression of life or that something could live there. Black ink used to stain the sand and then drybrushed up with greys will give a very dead and drab look. Also you could have a poke about in you bits box, a few skulls or bones will make things look dead. Make sure you include no static grass of anything else which could be called a plant and therefore alive.
You copuld also try to make the place look un-kept and un-even. You can do this by adding some putty or green stuff to the bases before you add the sand/gravel or whatever. Simply a little, tiny piece of green stuff can be placed on the base and smoothed down a bit so this lump blends in with the surface of the models base. Once you put your sand over this and paint it etc you will get an effect as though the ground your models are moving over is un-even.
|