Aside from the time constraints, the biggest artistic challenge was portraying the sense of depth in what was ultimately a traditional style pseudo-top-down fantasy world map. Selling the idea of the flying islands hanging above the surface and the seas flowing into the fathomless depths of the Godfells required quite a bit of experimentation with various perspective techniques. Ultimately I think the solution I settled on sells the perspective without creating too much dissonance with the more traditional viewpoint of the rest of the piece.
Agreed. You did a great job with it. I definitely get that sense of everything draining down into the middle, but you didn't sacrifice any of the traditional fantasy map look. Nice!