Ah I was just gonna say that this reminded me a lot of Shadow of the Colossus. You did a great job on the rider nice work. As for the lighting you mentioned. I suggest to put it directly behind him and have the shadows really extreme. Makes it look really dramatic like there's a sunset. And sand texture, just a bunch of dots should do. Unless you wanna draw every single grain that'd be such a pain lol anyway good work that snake monster is uber cool ^_^