Whoa. I'm still confused as to how people make backgrounds seem to shine like that... Any pointers?

On a picture with a white background like this, it's pretty simple, in photoshop. select everything that isn't the character (which can easily be done by selecting the character, and then inverting your selection, in the menu) and fill it white. Then, in the filter menu, gaussian blur the white layer, at about 20. Instant bloom.

On non white backgrounds, just go around the edges of the character, with the colour of the light, using a soft brush, on a new layer.

Hell yeah, you did an outstanding job! Thank you!

Nice job making the fact that it's a traditional "dotted-line & big X" pirate treasure map evident by having it show through the backside in silhouette! :}

And also marks the tissue-paper map.