I worked all day yesterday on updating the graphics for my blog header. I like my overall design that I debuted in 2013. So there is no need for me to reinvent the wheel. Ha! And the exquisitely talented British actor Richard Armitage is ever my muse for blogging and writing, etc. And here it is. Ta dah!
So each year for my new blog header, I switch out the individual Richard Armitage character portraits each year–keeping a few holdover character portraits that I like. But getting the right graphics and sizing them–as well as sizing the final versions for WP takes awhile. But looking all day at Richard Armitage is a very good thing. Sighhhh!
In particular, my 2016 blog header features two of Richard’s outstanding performances that won critical praise and award notice in the past year:
1) Richard Armitage won the 2015 Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies–a role which many fans feel was really a Best Actor category role. But he won, and that is what counts!
2) Then for Richard Armitage’s highly praised and lauded 2014 role of John Proctor in The Crucible on stage at the Old Vic, it garnered him a prestigious Best Actor Nomination for the 2015 Olivier Awards.
And here are the two award graphics that I made and included in my 2016 blog header–with an uncropped Thorin version that was a revision of an earlier poster I had made–that I created for my 2016 blog header that I enlarged below (and I also put them in my sidebar at right):
My great thanks for the sources of the original images (with my edits) that I used in my blog header. Drumroll please:
1) RANet (www.RichardArmitageNet.com). RANet is a fantastic resource for pictures, news, and artwork regarding Richard Armitage. Their handy gallery of photos organized by his projects is great. The RANet images from the gallery were: Lucas North in Spooks, 2009, as Harry Kennedy in Vicar of Dibley, 2006; as John Porter kissing Dani (Shelly Conn) in Strike Back, 2010; as Sir Guy of Gisborne in Robin Hood, 2009; as John Standring in Sparkhouse, 2002; and as John Proctor in The Crucible, 2014, photographed by Johan Persson);
2) The Hollywood Reporter (as Raymond de Merville in Pilgrimage);
3) Candida Brady’s tweet (as Chop in Urban and the Shed Crew, 2014);
4) Esquire UK December 2013 for Richard Armitage portrait;
5) Digital Spy (as Thorin used in the poster, from The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, 2014);
6) Richard Armitage’s Weibo tweet via Isabelle (for ice cliff Thorin from The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, 2014); and
7) my North & South cap as John Thornton kissing Margaret Hale (Daniela Denby-Ashe), 2004.
So I hope you like my revised blog header–because it will be up the whole year of 2016. Ha!
And once again, Happy New Year 2016 Cheers! Grati ;->
Like it?? I am loving it XD I mean what’s no to like/love/adore regarding Richard? :D
p.s. which photo editor do you use?
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Hi Andrea,
Thanks for your nice note about my new blog header! Im’ so glad that you like it! Here’s how I edit/create images:
1) I size, “fix”, crop and/or mask RA images in Photoshop; and what I mean by masking is removing the background from around the RA image (saving it as a gif file for layering later);
2) Then I layer the graphics and add text in Powerpoint–which allows me to try out several versions quickly, and it has a soft edges effect (1pt) to smooth out image edges when masking to just Richard Armitage;
3) Then I copy and import the now layered graphic and paste it into a new Photoshop file–further sizing (300res) or fixing other image anomalies; save as a jpeg file
Snap!
Cheers! Grati ;->
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January 04, 2016–Thanks for liking this post!
Carolyn, Servetus, Evie Arl, & Esther
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