Thanks! The plan at first was to bring it in udk and add in sand either with seperate geo or with vertex paint on the tiles. However, I want to showcase the prop itself more than an "environment" so I'll look into making the sand a seperate mesh and adding it on top of the tiles!
Alright small update time. Decided to throw in a few ideas in Zbrush. It's a bit of a mix between Fallout 3, Resident Evil movie in the "covered in sand" Salt Lake City. Ignore the sand, just a quick test of how I'd like to have the sand vertex painted in the tiles. Around it, I would surround it with sand in UDK and…