Obsidian beach

[AndyWelder]

Saw an episode of "Top Gear" a couple of years ago where the Hamster in a SUV raced against a jet propelled canoe or something. I don't recall how that ended but what I never forgot were the images of the Icelandic landscape: Black beaches of volcanic material, geysers all over the place, mountains and low dense clouds in the background.
A couple of times I did start on a project trying to capture that but it never worked out. Recently however a couple of elements came together (in other words I stumbled upon a clipfile of decent looking stones by Dune that also had a blackish surface layer and then there was this cloud file that Markal sent me with clouds that did look like geysers) and so I gave it another try.
Some points of improvement I do notice and I'm working on that already: The sand definitely needs a wet zone, the stones are all over the place now and need some restriction to the not so steep slopes. Also I'm thinking about adding some tufts of dry grass to add a sense of scale. The water needs some improvement too: More smooth and a little bit of foam where it touches the sand. And possibly there is room (and skill  ) for some clumps of ice floating on the water and stranded on the coast.

Any other improvements?

[AndyWelder]

Tried to find some footage of that "Top Gear" episode but found nothing except a description of the race: It wasn't a SUV but a 4WD...

Made the improvements I already planned so now I'm really curious what you folks think about it.

[Dune]

The dark surface needs more subtle displacement and extra color, and the ice would benefit from a little more color variation (greens, blues, patchy reflection) and some cracks perhaps. You can build eroded icebergs from small generated terrains, which you can restrict by using a warped simple shape, and erode.... nice food for experimentation. The water also needs some foam around the bergs, I'd say.
I hope this helps you getting on. It's a nice start anyway!

[AndyWelder]

OK, I give up on this one, for now.

The dark surface needs more subtle displacement and extra color,

Done

the ice would benefit from a little more color variation (greens, blues, patchy reflection)

Did that too.

The water also needs some foam around the bergs

Tried and tried, searching the forum for methods on how to achieve that. To no avail.
Attached is the final render and also a googled image of the kind of beach I had in mind.

On to something new.

[dandelO]

I have that very shot(among others) as reference for a black-sand project I've been working on for a few months. Can't share anything on it for now but stay tuned and I'll update as soon as I can. The overall feeling of my scene isn't all that different to your renders.
I think your sand needs to be a little more grainy and I'm not so keen on the larger sized rocks, they seem a bit too regularly placed, or something. Looking good though.