tilemap Create spritegroup from tailemap layer

[Kindzoku]

Hi, I'm very new to 2D game development and Phaser, alltogether.

So, my goal is to create a complex object from sprite tiles. Let's say it's a ship Top-Down view. The ship itself is controllable entity. It's pretty easy to create tilemap with Tiled, and add the ship to the game via layer. But as I can see, tilemap layer is supposed for level map (only?). I can't find a way to place layer at a custom position.

On other hand, I can create my ship in sprite group with sprites, but it's not as easy as to use Tiled json. A lot of additional logic. So is it a way to convert layer to spritegroup? Or I'm doing it all very wrong? Thx.