[WIP / Feedback] My first steps in CC3+

[SIrus0]

Hello everyone,

I bought a short while ago CC3+ and tried experimenting with it. Now with my first results I would love to get some feedback. But for the beginning I would give some contextual information. I've created an own campaign world which works in two levels. There is the normal world map with big continents, but also some floating island up in the sky. This map I'm asking feedback for is a part of these flying landmasses. This is the reason it has a simple all one color background. When I finished all sky islands reworking in CC3+, I want to put them together in a big map. Probably with a programm like GIMP or Affinity Photo 2, because it feels easier for me at the moment. So the all one color background makes it easier to get cut the blue out to get a transparent background. A couple months ago I already created in Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator the layout of both levels of my world. It looks like this:





That is the context how I started. When I bought CC3+ I had problems to understand how the programm works. But after some days I was able to redraw the outline of the first sky island by using the AFMG pics as transparent layer to trace after the original outlines. The I started to work putting symbols in it. At first I wasn't sure about the sizes of the cities and the forest. So I tried using smaller symbols, so the island would also look bigger in reference. But I soon realized that using small tree symbols made the forest into a big green mass. The trees were indistingable and got lost in the big number of used symbols. The result was this:



This nation is called "Melora's Weide" (it's german, could be translated into "Willow of Melora"). When I started to get into DnD I had no knowledge about existing pantheons and when I created mine, I used gods from Critical Role because it was my only contact to DnD until then. Also just for context. One of my player said, that the island doesn't fit to the goddess. In my campaign Melora got another title and is called "Die wildwuchernde Mutter" (german for "Evergrowing Mother"), but this nations forest looked like an precise designed concept to my player. So I started to create a more chaotic growing forest and using bigger symbols for the cities and trees for a better optic. And here is the version how it exists now:



Personally I like this new version way better, than the previously one, but since I don't have much experience with map making I thought there won't be any harm in asking for other opinions. At the end of this post (if someone is interested in it) I will put an small explanation about my world and this specific island. I can't wait about your feedback and hope I didn't made to many mistakes. Since I just started to use CC3+, I also didn't used many sheet effects by now. Are there any you would recomment to me for improving this map?

Thanks for reading by now, I wish you all wonderful days and stay healthy
Greetings


About my campaign world
The sky in my world is dominated by big floating islands. These flying landmasses were created by the gods to offer protection to the peoples, after been overrun by monsters many centuries ago and threatened to be wiped out - this event is called the "Shattering" and the islands in the air "Cloudnations". Elves are the main residents of this particular patch of land. The tree in the center is a gigantic willow planted by the goddess Melora after the Shattering so that the elves who fled could continue to maintain a close connection with nature. Over the centuries, as the tree grew to a certain extent, it was partly built upon, becoming the central temple of the elves and their religion. Due to this background, I made the island quite flat and almost completely overgrown by trees (therefore it was the perfect test object for me to experiment with CC3+ and learning how it works). The only settlements are on the fringes of the island, since airships are the prime option for traveling between the Cloudnations and so these spots had become perfect locations for cities to allow these vehicles to head for special skyports.