Just a quick report today: progress on my world maps for the Curse of Steel project. After tinkering a bit and learning how to build and use layer masks in Photoshop, I managed to paint mountain belts in their own layer on my map, with the following results:

Here, the deep-red belts are “young” mountains, the result of recent orogeny at the site of plate collisions or subduction. Think the Andes, Rockies, or Himalayas. The narrow, golden-brown belts are “old” mountains, the eroded remains of ranges that formed many millions of years ago in previous orogenic periods. Think the Appalachians or Atlas range.

One thing strikes me: the big continents to the east are going to have really big rain-shadow deserts, since those young, high mountains are going to block any kind of monsoon climate from moving too far inland. I’ll have to figure out the air circulation patterns next to know for sure. It makes sense, though, since large continents tend to have big arid zones anyway.

Next, it will be time to work out those climate patterns. I’ve been reading up on techniques for that all week, and the long weekend coming up should be a good time to work out the details.