Orientalist inspired painting wip

So I'm working on an orientalist inspired painting to get the hang of some islamic architecture principles I'm using in a different project and because I had to do an illustration with Camel's for animal magic. Also cause the Gerome show at the Getty is awesome. Just the WIP stuff I got from this afternoon's painting with ideas for character staging and without. The big spirally nonsense at the end of the building indicates where I think a focal character is going to be if I go with that layout. The idea would be a caravan riding by a town that is full of bandits about to steal the caravan's stuff. If I do that I think I need to extend the canvas a bit more to the right side and give more room for the caravan to show up and some empty space or other area of buildings/trap on the far side of them. The other idea leaves the environment the way it is and has the caravan coming into the dark archway on the left to meet the town ruler.