Hi I'm a total noob when it comes to Maya, I've done some tutorials and I think I know enough basic modeling to try my first project. I'm gonna need a lot of help and I'm gonna ask some stupid questions, so if you guys could help me taht would be great.

My brother is returning from Iraq on Tuesday and I want to hopefully have this done by the time he gets home. It's the Marine Emblem.


The first one is a basic image of what I want to model


This one is a bit bigger but some of the parts are harder to distinguish


This one is what it looks like pinned on the uniform, I'm thinking of maybe making it this color/texture, I will definitely be making it this shape though, only half the sphere etc.


If you guys could give me an idea of how I should start out that would be great, I was thinking of making the globe first, and using Sub-D's cause I know I can make the creases easily that way, but I don't know how I'll do the extruded land masses yet :/