WIP - (ambitious) World Map of fictious earth-like planet

[Naima]

This is a really old thread to ressurrect, but the fact is that work on this map is a never finished task.

It's now just over 3 and 1/2 years since I started this. That's 42 months of "often interrupted work". I can't count the hours spent on this project, and while it's incredibly difficult for a sane adult to justify this investment, I can't help feeling proud of the direction it's taking. I say it's taking a certain direction because it's very much a Work In Progress. It's far from finished. In fact, some areas might be up for complete devastation and remake, as I grow increasingly unsatisfied with some tectonic aspects in the background.

In the meanwhile, this project has generated a number of spinoffs:
A joint work with Azelor and others on climates for a conworld. Interesting discussions with several members on culture and technology diffusion. Daunting (pointless?) exercises on tectonics with so many newcomers. A couple of tutorials for the Guild. A starting-to-become-detailed history of the world, from Neolithic to Present (although I didn't even reach the Iron Age). A series of detailed modern atlas maps.

Ramblings aside, I'm writing this post, basically, to share the current state of the world map.
currentstate_20170616.png
(Yay, long live large attachments! - click to enlarge and have a look at it further zoomed in)

Like I said, I am truly pround of this, and yet, I know it has so many faults and improvements to be made. May I ask for thoughtful feedback, fellow guilders? I know some of you don't care for realism that much, or prefer pictographic maps to heightmaps, or are here for the dungeon stuff only.... but, if you can, could you have a look at this and tell me - which parts look realistic and which parts just unnatural? where does your imagination take you when looking at this map?

Lastly, some time ago we discussed here at the guild about using a part of this map for the monthly competition. Which part would you like to map? (and why?)

Many many thanks for the feedback!!
Cheers

I personally think it looks awesome and its been my main source of inspiration and teaching for my own world , the only thing that I would say doesn't look very realistic to me are the twirls and spins that some mountains are doing , I understand its geologicial twists made by continent collisions and movements, but somehow seem too accentuated like if it wasn't solid rock but more of a fluid , eventually I would refine that, also on the Hypsographic map I would add more layers of color for mountain heights as so far its all very green and yellow , also I would add a Batymetric map to represent also undersurface continental drift as I did for example in my latest map.
I also would add a triple height distinction based on temperature or on rain , so for example dry hot areas would have a desert like tone , a cold dry area would have a cold icey tone etc...
For the rest the shapes of the Continents are extremely belieaveable and realistic.
I am a fun of realistic maps though .