Denim!

Ahh I was so sad when my Zelda nails started chipping, but I guess I had it coming. Bowling I tell ya, it ruins your nails. 
I also decided to cut my nails, partially because I broke a nail and had to cut it really short, and also because since I've started school again I'll be doing more stuff and risk my nails. Breaking them just upsets me so having them a bit too short for my liking is the better choice. 
I wanted a simple design this time, but still awesome. I cut off a pocket off my jeans and it was just laying there on my desk in front of me, so, why not? 

I started by painting my nails a very deep navy blue. Then I took my white striper and took as much paint off as I could, and then I striped my nails. Then I took a lighter blue and sponged over it to get the stripes in different shades. I went over it again with a navy blue to get the deep color back, and then I added studs and rhinestone, and a matte top coat. 
I really love them, because at first glance they look simple, but then you look closer and see the texture. You could add stitches and pockets and so on, but I like it this way. Also, again, I wanted something simple. 
Tialiq


EDIT
Since all denim looks different, I wanted to post a picture of the one that inspired me! This is my test-nail, and my inspiration! The colors are different, but I wanted a more pure blue on my nails, it looks better to me. 

Zelda! Again!

So I haven't done nerdy nails for a while. Except those Hellsing ones.. And when I saw the cut scene after completing the Temple of Time in The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, I just got so inspired that I had to paint. 
I started by panting my ring finger and thumb white, and sponged a white french on the rest of my nails, letting it go up on the nail slightly. Then I sponged on a light grey for dimension, in the middle on my white nails and on the tip of my french. I also sponged on golden acrylic paint on my ring finger and thumb. 
For my french nails, I wanted to do the diamond shapes that Ghirahim produces, both when you fight him and when he "cages" Link. I mixed in a little gold in my black paint to make it shimmer. 
I wanted to do two patterns, the Zelda logo and the eye on Impas clothes. I did make triangles instead of 5 drops, because I thought it went better with the triforce. Since the logo is big and the eye is slim, and my thumb is big and my ring finger is slim, that's why I placed them where they are. I would've wanted the logo on my ring finger, but had to accept that doing it this way would make it look better. And.. It looks amazing.

I liked my other Zelda nails, but I love these. My hands were so shaky after painting these that I could barely top coat! 
But it was worth it.
Tialiq

Purple with Leopard!

Sometimes I just can't name my designs at all! 

Okay so this is a long story. However, I'll put it a bit further down. First, the design! 

I painted my nails with my favorite color, a nice pastel purple. Then I didn't really know what to do, until I saw this neon orange polish just standing around on my desk. 
I used a pumpkin orange acrylic paint as my base, and made little stripes, almost like flames. Then I went over it again with the neon polish, and finally with a shimmery, thin orange polish with golden reflexes. It looked cool just like that, but I wanted to paint more! And what color compliments both purple and orange? Gold! 
Again, I started with acrylic paint and made a dark yellow using orange, so it wouldn't turn mustard yellow. I randomly dotted in misshaped dots with my brush, and then went over it again with golden acrylic paint. To make the leopard print happen I mixed in black with my golden paint, to make a shimmery, not as heavy black. And voilá! 

Top picture is taken under a bright light, and is how it looks in sunlight. Here you can see the golden reflexes in the orange. But below.. That's taken in daylight, it was cloudy, and the neon really pops! Camera doesn't pick it up too well, but trust me, these shine!

Now for the story. 

At first I was doing to do a marble design. That water design I made keeps coming back in my head and I just wanted to do it again. This time though, I wanted to marble lava. 

It started off great. I painted my nails yellow and marbled the first layer with a thin, light yellow and orange. Next dip was red and grey, and then I did a last dip as well to get it a bit darker. It looked pretty cool! 

But I wanted to add more. Just wearing a marble felt too simple. So I thinned golden acrylic paint until it was basically just water with golden shimmer, and added it on top. Then I tried adding golden glitter on my thumb, and that's when it started to look horrible. 

I added rhinestones and then realized how awful it looked. So I figured I could add flowers to make it better. Using crimson and gold, I made flowers on all my nails and added rhinestones in the middle. This is what it looked like:

Since I'd been working on my nails for quite a while I got frustrated and removed it all in anger. I put on purple polish because it's my favorite color, to cheer myself up a bit, and then I waited for an idea to hit me. Luckily, my orange polishes were still out and gave me the idea that I'm now wearing! 

Eventually, things always work themselves out!
Tialiq

Hellsing!

I've recently re-watched the fantastic anime Hellsing, and it gave me million of ideas. So I had to paint as many as possible. 

For those that don't know, Hellsing is a dark, bloody vampire series. The main character is a vampire, and he works for an organization called Hellsing that takes care of other vampires causing trouble. Basically. 

So, vampire theme! Since I think splashing blood is so much fun, I got really excited. Going to go through this properly, final pic is at the bottom of the post! 

I started by planning out what motives I wanted, I have a paper full of drawings, but I chose the ones that went best together. Then I chose my background colors. I wanted to have red in every design, but I didn't want any nail to have red polish, so most of them turned out grey. 

I mixed the blue myself, using the pale grey, a thin mint blue and a drop of navy blue. The white nail has a coat of a thin skin colored polish, but it doesn't show well. It's also on the grey pinky, you can see that it's a bit lighter than on the index finger. The ring finger has one coat of a silver polish. 

Here I've added another coat of skin colored polish on my middle finger, you can kind of see it now. In real life it's perfect! I also added a glittery silver polish on the silver nail.
My first design was on the thumb, the blue background being their blue uniforms, and the emblem (or whatever it's called) that's on their uniforms. I started by making a black, even cross almost in the center of the nail, a bit closer to the tip, so I could fit the upper part. Filled it in, waited for it to dry, and filled it in again with white, leaving a black line on the sides and for the top part. Then I added the black squares you can see  in the picture. 

I filled in the white squares with red, and the top part in yellow. I also wrote "HELLSING" in black over the yellow area, you can see that later. 

On the skin colored nail I put a vampire bite. This is super easy to do, you sponge on a circle of red polish for the bit area, add a dark red, almost burgundy circle in the middle, and then draw in some blood sippering from it. I made almost brown circles, did the dripping blood in a shade more red, and then added my beloved blood polish (that I'm holding) to give it a bit more pop. 

On my index finger I wanted a cross. There is a cross in the intro of the anime, picture below, and that's the one I wanted. I started by just making a black cross, as you can see. 

My ring finger got my best idea, the bird design. I made a lot of black V's, few on the sides and more in the middle. On the second picture below you can see how they've made a black space in the middle of the nail. 

And the finished nails!

Starting with my index finger; I filled in the cross with white, and then added thin, black stripes. Since I wanted red on all my nails, I painted blood pouring down on the cross, and dripping from the edges. 
Ring finger; In the black area made by the birds, I added white mixed with a tiny bit of black to make a really light grey, and made almost shapes. These are eyes. I put in black circles and then dotted on red to make the eyes look really evil and yummy. 
Pinky finger; On my pinky I wanted something simple and bloody, so I re-did the blood design I once did (but that one had lace). I started off the same as last time, I made a dark red by mixing crimson red and a light brown, and watered it down until it was very, very thin. Then I loaded my brush heavily and tapped it to make the paint splatter over my nail. I added more brown into the paint and went over it again to make shades. Then I took my bloody polish and dotted it in with my brush on the big drops to give it dimension.

I absolutely love this design. I usually fail horribly when added different motives, especially with different background, but these are kept together perfectly by the red additions in each design. 

What I thought of while making these as well, was the you can have each of these designs on its own! The emblem can go on the ring finger, and then you can have the rest of the nails black or blue. The cross, again on the ring finger, would look great if the other nails were just grey (or maybe silver or red, and then have that color behind the cross as well). The bite can be put on your ring finger, and then you can make the rest of the nails skin colored and just add blood dripping from the cuticle.
The birds and eyes would look awesome on the ring finger, with the rest of the nails in black. I don't think having this design on all your nails would look good. As for the splattered blood, I've done that before, and it looks great! 

So this is my tribute to a great anime, I loved making these and I'm loving wearing them. Hope you love them too!

Tialiq

Steam!

A friend of mine that was visiting is a huge nerd, and he gave me the idea of a Steam nail design! 

I wanted the look to be really clean and simple, so I painted my whole nails black and made a tiny, dark grey gradient with a metallic polish. I added tilted stripes, which Steam has in its design, and tiny stripes of a small glitter polish. Then I finished the look with the simple, clean Steam logo on my ring finger. I really love it!
Tialiq