Earth-like planet, take 1

After DAYS of working with 3ds max and banging my head repeatedly against my keyboard, I've achived "NatGeo" Level 3d planet design... it is far from where I'd like it to be, but such is life. I will work on it again tomorrow. 

tutorials used:
tutorial 1
tutorial 2

Plus googling phrases like "why the fuck is my bitmap so small?!" 
... Turns out, something called 'Tiling'.