hehe, I had some more layers on this one but i skipped the fonts, borders, etc. in my list. My atlas-style maps have many more layers as well. As for my brush, I used to draw with rounded brush, but switched to square. Basically all linework I do with a square brush now (usually 3-6pt at 100% opcity/flow with pressure set to size). For values I use a rounded brush (and sometime the color mixer brush from CS5) at different values and opacity. For document size, I usually just make it the size I want it (like letter or A4) at 300dpi. But sometimes I create the map at 2-3x the "final-size", if I want to have some more control over details... cheers, DJ