Named after the Roman goddess Juno, and hopefully marking the beginning
of summer in the Northern Hemisphere, June has arrived. This month’s
Create A Calendar Competition saw an unprecedented number of screenshot
entries. But first, it’s time for something completely
different…

Kicking things off this month we have a
submission from Ruud Kroon in The Netherlands. Six months into the
contest, Ruud is the very first person to send in a photo as his entry,
so extra kudos for that! Here are a few words from the photographer
himself:

“You can see a mother equipping her
husband or son, or a shield bearer equipping his master. I would say
according to the helmet it’s in the middle of the dark ages. It’s a
photo which I adjusted in Photoshop with fade, wet finger, and
brush.”

The
mysteriously named Gardenhose101 sent in this image of a lone knight
atop a hill, as a mighty battle unfolds behind him.

After winning last month’s
prize, Randy Bollinger from St. Louis returns this month with a tribute
to the Scottish.

The
following ghostly forest scene is one of eight sent in this month by
forum member Gebeleisis.

Jimmy Bjors from Finland
sent in the following image, depicting a tranquil summer’s
evening.

“This is simply one of my screenshots that
I frequently take during my Scottish campaign. I just loved the setting
and found that one of my knights was slightly astray from his unit - he
seemed to be looking at the beautiful sun. I paused the game and spent
literally half an hour staring at the screen and trying to capture it
from a good angle. It was raining outside at the time, which could
explain why I was so captivated by the beautiful summer setting on my
monitor.

“It never crossed my mind to send it in for
the competition until I realized that I finally had something that
might be worth sending in. I’m no artist after all, so I have to rely
on the beautiful graphics engine.
 
“Using
my very limited Photoshop skills I experimented with different filters
and effects and eventually ended up with the result you see now. I
actually don’t remember what I did to the colours, I was simply
changing different sliders and that was the result (as I said, I’m no
Photoshop expert). I also added a tiny lens flare effect on the
sun.”

Next
up is Bill Bockas from Greece, who sent in this rather graphic
depiction of a battle that took place on 18th June 1053 in Southern
Italy.

“The picture is hand-painted with pencil, and
then edited in Adobe Photoshop. I chose this colour (orange/yellow) to
give it a sense of June, which is a sun shining month (at least here in
Greece :)). The theme is inspired from the rather infamous Battle of
Civitate. Read more here.

“I combined this
inspiration with two of Medieval II’s awesome units, so the outcome was
a Byzantine infantry-man killing brutally a Norman knight.
Enjoy!”

Our
winning entry this month comes from Fatih Koymen in Istanbul, Turkey.
It features a platoon of comedy sized, paintbrush-wielding artists,
probably going off to create their entries for next month’s Calendar
competition!

“Generally my artwork is about comics
and I try to show the ‘Good things in Bad’… ‘the contrasts in real
life’… telling all the truth you can get by  way of being an
artist (a native human). My work does impinge on the general nature of
war and try to find a metaphor between Middle Ages and today. So I’ve
chosen today’s popular game Paintball to refer to the historical wars.
At peacetime when the kings didn’t fight they would like to play Paint
War to get a little rest and also to prepare the army for the next
battle.

“I manipulated a few graphics on Photoshop
CS2 with a Macintosh Imac G5. As a background picture I used a Total
War screenshot. Brushes and graffiti, which I used on the background,
are also downloaded from Internet. Finally I re-designed the
composition that I thought and planned before. Then I added the right
colour values and applied necessary filters to get the realistic
view.”

Great work, Fatih, and proof
positive that the Calendar Competition is a great way for artists to
brush up on their skills. The finished wallpaper is available to
download in two sizes here and is the perfect June accompaniment to any
desktop.

The
conclusion of June’s competition can only mean one thing - July 2007’s
Create A Calendar Competition has officially begun! This month’s
must-have prizes include some signed Total War artwork, a copy of
Medieval II: Total War, plus Rome and Medieval II soundtracks. You have
until Saturday 30th June to get your entries in.  

For full entry details, please click here.

Thank you as
always to everyone who entered, and I can’t wait to see what
masterpieces you come up with next month!

Have a
great weekend.