Graphic a Day, 31 May 2011

Day 31 – How many days are in May?

Today’s Picture of the Day (POD) at RichardArmitageNet.Com:

Picture of the Day, 31 May 2011

Here are your Graphics of the Day:

1600 x 900 pixels – click for full size

And here:

1600 x 900 pixels – click for full size

You might wonder what’s going on with two wallpapers.  Some people like sharp and some people like soft.  Hence, two versions of the same composition.

On my computer, I’m using both as an “animated wallpaper” of sorts.  If you’re interested in doing the same, you can set them up as a desktop background slide show.  If you don’t know how to do this already, there is a link with instructions later in this posting.*

♥  Again, the POD is lovely! *sigh*  Because of Richard Armitage and his characters, I memorized how to make an ASCII heart, LOL!  ♥

The only problem with the POD is that Richard’s ear is cut off, like van Gogh. To fix this, I borrowed an ear from this Spooks promo picture:

I used the Match Color command to make Lucas’ ear blend in with Richard’s.  😉

The shoulders were cut off too, so I added to them using this picture from the tv.com  Spooks interview:

For a bit more color on the POD, I used the Seasons filter from Xero Graphics.  After rebuilding RA like the Bionic Man, I set out in search of a base for the background image and found an underwater light and bubbles image from Della-Stock on deviantart:

Since my last Richard Armitage wallpaper used the sky and clouds, this time I went with an other-worldly underwater image.  I wanted to add hearts because I couldn’t help myself, so I found a really cool set of brushes at photoshopsupport.com and used them for the heart-shaped sun and the smaller linked  hearts.

As an experiment, I duplicated the background layer and put it over the POD and set it to the Saturation blend mode  That made Richard’s cheeks and lips a bit pinker which was an unexpected and welcome effect.

Although it’s essentially a Richard Armitage wallpaper, I really liked this screencap from Spooks 7.5 so I incorporated it too.  I added hair and a shoulder by cutting and pasting from other parts.

I wanted to include a full-body shot of Richard himself.  They are few and far between, but I found some on RichardArmitageNet.Com and chose this one because I liked the pose:

The text “I’d like to do something nice and calm and all about love” and “Richard Armitage” were done in the Journal and Mulder Handwriting fonts. I added an outer glow and a drop shadow.

Those are the components of my top wallpaper which is essentially a composite.  For the watercolor style one, I followed a very cool tutorial from abduzeedo.com.

These are the same wallpapers at 1440×900 pixels – click for full size:

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*Here’s the link for instructions on how to set up a desktop background slide show in Windows 7: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/create-a-desktop-background-slide-show.  If you have a different operating system, you can Google for instructions or phone a friend.  😉

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I’m eager for the day that Richard Armitage indeed does a project all about love! ♥ ♥ ♥

According to my calendar, this is the final Graphic a Day in May. It’s been really fun to learn some new techniques. I didn’t really intend for my posts to be full tutorials since I did not give my step-by-step procedures. It’s all right if you didn’t read my commentary; it’s essentially a journal of sorts so I can look back and remember my thinking process. There are lots of tutorial sites online along with books and videos if you would like to learn graphic editing.

I would like to give a warm fuzzy blanket “thank you” to everyone who visited my site, especially those who fully participated by commenting here, on twitter and/or facebook –sometimes all three! Also I appreciate the retweets and the links on facebook, blogs and websites. You really helped drive traffic my way. *HUGE HUGS* Also, I appreciate you requesting PODs which added to the interactivity and spirit of collaboration. It was really a lot of fun for me, even if sometimes you chose challenging pictures, LOL!

By the way, I do have a few surprises planned over the next few days. After that, my posts will be fairly sporadic so I urge you to subscribe to my blog so you don’t spend time checking for updates.

Very importantly, I want to give my massive thanks to Ali at RichardArmitageNet.Com.  She was so unbelievably supportive that I can’t express my gratitude enough.  When I approached her with my idea for A Graphic a Day in May, I explained that I wanted to use the Pictures of the Day because otherwise I would just use John Porter screencaps with an occasional Harry Kennedy thrown in, LOL! Thank you for everything, Ali.