Before I could get started painting the Temple Entrance, I needed to get some sand glued onto the base, and I needed to figure out exactly where everything was going to go.
I laid out the terrain first by simply placing things where I thought they might look good (referring to the instructions for the original composition along the way). Once I had things the way I wanted them, I did some measuring to make sure things would square up, and then glued down the pieces of the Temple Entrance.
![Pieces in position Pieces in position](workbench/pics/fan/2008/86213a.jpg)
Next, I used regular Elmer's glue (white glue), thinned a bit with water, to glue down the sand in large patches.
Since the glue on the sand was still drying, I started the painting process on the obelisks, statues and pillars. I used an orangey-brown craft paint (thinned with water) as the base color for the stone pieces.
![First paint First paint](workbench/pics/fan/2008/86213b.jpg)
You can see from the way the paint pooled at the bottom of the pillars that my mix was pretty thin (and I wasn't terribly concerned about neatness…).
![Paint pools Paint pools](workbench/pics/fan/2008/86213c.jpg)
Next, I added some tan to my base color and liberally drybrushed the stone pieces.
![Drybrushed Drybrushed](workbench/pics/fan/2008/86213d.jpg)
Another (largish) helping of tan into the mix and another heavy drybrush finished off the stone bits of the terrain piece.
![More drybrushing More drybrushing](workbench/pics/fan/2008/86213e.jpg)