Next time I’ll post at a higher quality. But anyways, here’s a quick test using a smoke sim and particles to create a sand burst effect, like in the Mummy films.
And yes, it’s the same render duplicated multiple times 
It looks good. It’d be cool to get more interaction with those dunes in the background though -I’m assuming that’s a stock photo from somewhere though and not done in Blender.
Good start. Did you mean for them to look so square?
more variation would really sell that effect, the tops are to square and there seems to be to much repeated pattern. If you are duping them perhaps you could flop some over (composited) to make it look more random.
hey guys -thank for the crit! I’ll definitely take those tips into consideration.
Nice work but I find some repetition you’ve done on the sand. Try to fix it and it will be perfect. Good job by the way. 