Hello everyone!
I have some free time and I thought of this case study on achieving a very convincing sand material without using any displacement on the model. The model was done in zBrush and I used scattering medium material with an additional label of sea sand texture. Work is still in progress and this is my 1st attempt. More will be coming as soon as I add some more props to make it more exciting. I am really excited about it.
Here are some more renders with different approach.