It's always a question of whether to design a template based on older templates, or to change the design in a way that better suits the style.

In the case of Darklands City it was easier to put the effects on the water generally, with the added bonus that you can run terrain under a river and not have to have a sandy beach the same width all the way around.

But if you prefer to swap things around to suit your map better, that's fine too :)

There's a Color Key sheet effect on the WATER sheet.

If you pick the majenta colour (6), make sure the fill style is Solid, and the active sheet is WATER, you can use the tools on the right to draw the island.

There should perhaps have been an island drawing tool, but I think it got overlooked at the time. I will see if I can make sure it gets included in part 2.

No. I was suggesting a rearrangement of the sheets. But I don't think it would work because your lines are too pale to not pick up the colour and go bright green or blue.

Which blend mode are you using?

Another possible solution is to put the lines on top of the colour and remove any transparency, but I think that would probably cause new and different issues.

Don't worry about it too much, Hans. I think I woke up in an extra nit-picky mood this morning. The effect you have achieved is something amazing as it is.

I notice how the lines are changing colour on you there.

Have you considered putting the colours as the background and multiplying everything else (paper and lines) over the top of them?

When inserting a bitmap in CC3, bear in mind that CC3 is a vector app, and will not be able to edit a bitmap. So the inserted file can only serve as a background image.

First, choose which map style you want to use to embelish your existing map, and make a new map in that style. It probably won't be the right size, but we can sort that out once you have imported the png image.

If you are aiming to use the bitmap as the background map, create a new sheet just below the BACKGROUND sheet and call it MAP, or some other such suitable name. Create a new layer with the same name and make sure both the sheet and the layer are active.

Then use Insert file from the Draw menu, and pick your png image to insert. So that you have the bottom left corner right on the origin, place it by typing the coordinates, 0,0 and hitting enter on the keyboard. Then you can stretch out the map to whatever size is correct for the scale (remember a map unit is equivalent to 1 mile or 1 km in an overland map, or 1 foot or 1 metre in either a city or dungeon map), or type the coordinates for the top right corner, if known.

Once you have finished inserting the map you can then use Resize Drawing Area in the File menu to make the map the right size to fit the inserted map.