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 :/