Previously known as Quintilis in Latin, July was renamed after the Roman Emperor Julius Caesar. Also taking his name in the UK is a popular brand of dog food, but that’s another story. The United States celebrates its Independence Day on 4th July, shortly followed by Venezuela (5th), Malawi (6th), Argentina (9th), Columbia (20th), and Peru (28th).

The entries this month are amongst the best we have ever received, and I am delighted to kick things off with Neset Kaya (aka Manco) from Bulgaria. He sent in an image depicting “A brave English knight who is throwing himself in front of a hail of arrows shot from the numerous enemy archers on a warm July night.”

I took the screenshot with the Cinematic Editor and edited it with ACDSee Pro and corrected some mistakes with Picasa. I used ‘oil painting’ and changed the contrast significantly. I added a little rain and highlighted the flame arrows so that they look like meteors in the night”

Tarcea Raul from Romania (aka Gebeleisis from the forums) sent in the following sunny image that definitely couldn’t have been taken in England!

“I used Picasa II and Paint.Net as editing programs. I then added a sun layer to the photo, highlighted it, saturation soft focus effects and another one or two things that I will not point out so that they will be a secret. The photo was created without a cinematic editor and is just a photo I made during one of my custom battles. Cheers for who wins, and see ya next month.”

It’s been a couple of months since our last pencilled entry.  James Young from Devon, England, sent this detailed woodland scene, along with the following description:

“The glade exists - the picture is based on some photos I took in July last year. I figured that such a surrounding would be a welcome break in any campaign - it wasn’t all hardship and bloodshed! The image is a pencil drawing with layers of paint and ink/bleach added and manipulated using Photoshop.”

Jorg Bommes (aka Sleepy) from Germany began work on his image back in May, and the extra time has resulted in a really well thought out submission:

“The program I used is called Micrografx Picture Publisher. On the picture I worked with masks, colour brightness, gray effects, some filters, and a lucky hand at cutting, and a good eye for finding the best screens (I hope).

The first time I saw the news on Totalwar.com, I thought of joining in. A month later I saw the film Kingdom of Heaven again. At the end of the film Saladin gets asked in German: “Was bedeutet Jerusalem? (”What does Jerusalem mean?”) He answers: “alles… nichts” (”all… nothing”). My brain kept working on… doesn’t that fit to MTW II? I have played so many MP games and with one wrong click your army is sent to hell! In the picture I tried to get the facts of good and evil together and support the thoughts of the little text I wrote with one good line, one bad, and one side dark, one side in colour. In the middle of a kind of colour battle.”

Making a welcome return to the competition is Bill Bockos (aka Vasileiosthe2nd) in Greece, with a hilarious image that wouldn’t look out of place on a postcard!

“A bored to death veteran knight, who doesn’t care at all about his general’s orders and prefers to sunbathe a bit almost naked by the beach, while a savage battle (of his own men?) occurs just a few yards farther on! Oh, and of course he has some ale to keep himself fresh and cool. I drew the basic lines with a faber castel pencil and scanned the paper to continue with colouring and editing the image in Adobe Photoshop. Also, some help from in-game screenshots I took helped a bit. ;)”

The quality continues in our next image. Tomas Mitkus from Surrey, England, sent in this dusty sandstorm image that really captures the harshness of the desert to full effect.

“I used Photoshop CS 2 to colour in, but the first few sketches were made with pencil on paper. First idea about July was that it’s summer, hot, sunny…So I came to an idea that best picture to show would be the Arabian Desert. It would be somewhere near Tunis, where a lonely pilgrim travelling to Jerusalem or Mecca gets into a desert storm.”

He’ll be getting the sand out for weeks…!

Marek Chadzynski from Poland sent in this month’s winning image. Full of vibrant colour and beautifully painted, it is guaranteed to brighten up even the dullest of desktops this month.

“At first I created simple 3D models of human forms, shield and sword. Then I found many desert photos from stock. Finally I painted everything in the graphic program ArtRage.This program uses paint techniques. I used tablet to paint, and I made several corrections in PhotoShop. For ideas I read many books about crusades, particularly about the first crusade.”

July 2007’s Create A Calendar wallpaper is available to download in two sizes here.

As an extra treat this month, Marek has kindly provided some of the 3D models he created to construct his winning image.



Many congratulations to Marek, and thank you to everybody who entered this month. I look forwards to seeing what you come up with for August’s Create A Calendar Competition - which has now officially started. You have until Friday 31st August to get your entries in, and this month’s prizes include some signed Total War artwork, a copy of Medieval II: Total War, plus Rome and Medieval II soundtracks. For full entry details, please click here.

Keep up the great work!

Mark O’Connell
(aka SenseiTW)