Great work, Sired! Can’t wait to see the land painted! :-)
I agree with IL and YG; the water looks great! Like you said, though, you might need to adjust it a little when you paint the land, depending on how it looks. Love the wave/ripple effect you’ve got going on.
With regards to your blow-up boxes where the mobilization zones used to be; I’d personally prefer to have a clean map, without any game aids. I know that those sea zones are largely unused, but I just like the clean look. I would use your map as is, and add some “mobile” game aids to it. Let me explain; for example, you could print out a couple (maybe three or four) generic numbered blow-up boxes on card stock and add some sort of numbered marker/flag to that. You could then place that marker on the zone you need enlarged and put that territory’s units on the corresponding blow-up box card.
Other than that I like the idea of adding the azores and/or canaries, as well as the transparent ocean names (as long as they’re subtle), and as YG said, maybe a nautical compass, if it works. :wink: