Soul Eater! Medusa!

Awwww yeah. I've decided to re-watch Soul Eater, just in time for Halloween! Hoping to get some inspiration.
This time, one of the few times, I've copied a nail art. Usually I add my own twist, or just get inspired by a design, but this time I full on copied... An anime character.

Creating Medusas nails was very easy. I just applied a dark grey polish (I'm pretty sure she wears a super dark grey, bordering on black, but I didn't have that so I settled for this dark grey. It has a bit of shimmer though which I dislike.) and added some yellow arrows with acrylic paint. First I did it with white acrylic, then with brown. I thought it was too dark and went over them again with this more yellowy-beige color that I mixed with a burnt sienna, a sand color, some green and a lot of white. 

Looking at the picture I realize how bad I am at making arrows... Practice makes perfect!

Also, I'm considering making them matte, as Medusas nails don't shine at all.. I'll see how I feel about it later. 

Here's printed screens from the anime!

The second I saw that Medusa was wearing nail art I decided to re-create it. I was too lazy to go back to find where I initially noticed the design, so I print-screened her hands and feet while she fought Stein.

Ahh, isn't it fun that I'm finally doing something slightly geeky! I've missed it!
Tialiq

Purple Leopard with Glitter!

Another purple design, another leopard print. 

I don't get it, I don't really like leopard prints. They're just so easy to do, it's not an ugly print, looks good in all colors... I'm assuming it's mostly the quick and easy part that makes me paint them.

Any way, this time I decided to do two things I've never done. 1: Paint one nail fully in glitter polish. 2: Have one nail completely stick out, but at the same time go with the rest of the nails. 

Of course I chose purple for my glitter. I mixed 6 glitters (light pink, dark pink, light blue, dark blue, purple, silver) with clear polish and painted 3 thick layers. Then I painted a white french on the rest of my nails and added a thin, light pink polish over the whole nail. Then I went over my french again to get it nice and white, and made some light purple dabs above it with acrylic paint. When I was done I added more purple in it and made a line over the edge of the french.
I took a little bit of purple and black and mixed it with loads of water to make the paint nice and thin. In my opinion, the thinner the paint the less you have to do. The brush and paint moves for you. You also get nice shifts in the paint, because it's so thin the water pools up and those areas become darker when it dries. 
So anyway, I painted the leopard print with the dark, watery purple. To finish it off I added another glitter mix to the thin lines above the french (purple, dark pink and dark blue glitter) and a tiny, purple rhinestone. 
Simple, but cute!
Tialiq

Purple One-Stroke!

I was out in our back garden, and I saw these beautiful purple flowers. The idea hit me, and I knew in my heart that it was time. So I made my first proper one-stroke design, in my favorite color!
I started with a white base. My white Essie polish keeps bubbling, I'm going to test if it's because of the base coat. I knew I wanted glitter on this design anyway, and I've already mentioned that that's the perfect way to cover up bubbles. 
Again, I mixed some golden glitter into a clear polish (it can't be fast drying, it will dry up before you've painted two nails) and used just a tiny bit of glitter so it wouldn't cover too much. Then I made the one-stroke.
The most difficult thing to master, in my opinion, is how to apply the paint on the brush. If it's too little, the stroke will be streaky. If it's too much, it'll mess up and not apply in a nice gradient. For this design, I also dipped 3/4 in the light purple, and 1/4 in the dark. That was quite hard to achieve every time. 
The other things you need to learn about one-stroke is; you have to move your hand in a fluid motion. If you stop in the middle, it has to be re-done from the start. You also need to learn how to angle the brush to get the different colors where you want them, but when you've learned the movement it's actually quite easy. 
After the flowers, I took the light purple and made little swirls and stuff. I thought they were too light though, and filled them in even thinner with the darker purple. I also added dark dots in the center of the flower, and light dots between the swirls. You can't really see those. 
For a final touch I added bigger, golden hexagons glitters in the flowers, and a dark purple rhinestone. 

You'll have to excuse my messy fingers, I'd only cleaned up around the cuticles.

I usually don't want to wear floral patterns, but I absolutely adore these nails. They're so elegant. I definitely want to try to make more one-stroke designs. It's so much fun!

Tialiq

P.S

Yes, I know it hasn't been very nerdy lately, I haven't seen any animes without blood recently, and I have quite a few blood-splatter designs. But they'll come back!

Retro Lilac!

Remember how I said my favorite color is purple? And them how I bought this amazing lilac polish by Essie? Yeah there's gonna be a lot of lilac. 
I started with my lilac polish, applied two coats. Then I made a black french with watery black acrylic paint, and then I filled it in with polish. Why? The paint does 70% of the work when it's that thin, it follows the nail very nicely. My black polish is very thin and needs at least two coats, but with acrylic under it you just need one. I really love having a black french!
Then.. The polish bubbled. I got so frustrated, I waited longer than usual and it hasn't bubbled before. But that mage me a reason to apply glitter. The best way to cover up bubbles is glitter. I hope you can't see it too well, but on my thumb and index finger there is way too much glitter. That's because I tried to apply it using a brush that isn't a fan brush (I still don't have one!), and it was just too much. Then I put some clear polish on my palette and put a little bit of glitter in that, and suddenly it was perfect. That was the whole reason I bought that cheap, clear polish too!
Then I started applying dots. The paint was a bit too watery, so the dots aren't as perfect as I want them, but you can't see that unless you're really close so I let it be. I started with big black dots, and then went over to my smaller dotting tool and made white dots, in the black dots and some over the black french. If I had the space I went in again with a black dot inside them. If a dot got a lot sloppier than acceptable, I put in a silver 2mm rhinestone. And I ended up with this retro design that I actually quite like. 

Initially I was going to make this design matte, but since it bubbled I didn't want to. Applying a matte top coat over bubbles makes the bubbles a lot more obvious. But I'm also out of Seche Vite, so I used my cheap not-really-a-top-coat to top coat and even hours after I'd applied it, the rhinestones moved around and smudged the design. You get so spoiled after using Seche, since it's rock solid within minutes. 

I also painted my mums nails! She wanted something pink to match her outfit for the weekend, so I used quite a strong pink (for her) and then painted a light pink filigree on her ring fingers and thumbs. She wanted it on all her nails but man.. They're so demanding to paint. Really makes your hands shake after a while, and you can't afford that with those thin lines. 

The lines were perfect before top coating, but they got a bit smudged by the polish which is a shame. They're really thin lines though so it's understandable. She also couldn't sit still long enough for the top coat to dry, so that might've contributed. But she's happy nontheless and therefore so am I. 
Tialiq

Murdering Mermaid!

Yes. 
At first I was going to do a Pocahontas-design, but I never felt inspired enough to actually paint it, so I wore my nails bronze for quite a while. I think I've said this before, but I don't really like wearing too warm colors like brown/bronze, red or orange. I had to do something about it, so I sat down with a lot of glitter and just played. 
First I applied a brown/bronze glitter haphazardly over the nail. Then I took two bigger hexagon glitters, one white that reflexes pink, and one yellow that reflexes green, and applied both in splotches. I tried not to have them overlap but it was quite difficult. That's the mermaid part.
Then I wanted shading on the sides, so I thinned black acrylic paint until it was basically black water, and applied it to the sides of my nail, and over the cuticle. Then I dabbed it with my finger to fade it in. It ended up seeping over the middle too, and when I tried to wipe it off it stuck on the glitters (even though I had applied a top coat to smooth it out), so everything got a lot darker. I applied more black on the sides, and then it just looked so menacing that I had to apply blood. 
I mixed a crimson red with some black acrylic paint, and randomly applied it around my nail. Then I added my trusted blood polish over it to make it pop. I went over everything again with the watery black, and boom. Murdering Mermaid. 

It looked so awesome before the cleanup! I didn't take a picture after cleaning up, but it definitely did not look this cool at all. I actually didn't even like it after cleaning up, so I ended up removing it pretty fast  Oh well! Can't win them all! 
Tialiq

Aztec!

My friend came over with bare nails, and I finally got to paint an Aztec design. I've been wanting to do it, but I haven't really felt like wearing it myself, so this was the perfect opportunity. 

I did horizontal patterns on all the nails, except the ring fingers. I also got to try out my new purple acrylic paint, finally. It wasn't really opaque so I'll probably have to mix in some white next time. 
I also got to practice making straight lines, and I think I did quite well! It was lots of fun.
Tialiq

Lilacs!

Now I'm gonna post two designs, and they're both purple! One is on my nails, and one on my mum. 
My design was a purple water marble. 
I did a double dip, the first one using very thin, light purples, one lilac and one a bit more pink. I created 3-4 large circles and just made a random pattern, not messing with it too much. Just as an interesting base, really. Then I took the lilac again, a brown and a clear polish. This time I made more circles and messed with it a lot to create thin stripes in my pattern. I finished by adding a pink rhinestone, to make it a bit more clear that it's actually purple, not pink. 

I really like it! It looks a bit like either ice cream or some really cool stone. You can also see that I dip all my nails at once, as the pattern moves over my nails. I really like that for this design. 

My mum got something a bit more simple, the same lilac paint and then a simple dot-pattern that I saw Robin Moses do in a video I've now lost.. But she's amazing!

My mum can't sit still for very long and made a dent in the polish before I got to take a picture, but it doesn't really show that much. 
This lilac is my new favorite polish. It's by Essie and it applies so smooth and well, it's the perfect shade of lilac. I really like Essie overall, the brush, the formula, the application.. It's a dream to paint with. 
Tialiq

Green and Gradient!

So I bought this new, amazing green polish that I wanted to play with. I also had an idea about making a gradient using tape to block areas.. So these ideas mashed together and created this:

I wanted some kind of contrast, so I added a yellow and red gradient on the ring finger, since it's autumn and all. It also goes well with green. This gradient was a bit trickier because the red paint is acrylic, and the yellow is polish, and you have to remove the tape while the polish is still wet and it didn't blend well with the acrylic and.. Yeah. But I made it work. 
I also applied the golden glitter I used in my previous design on one side to make it a bit more interesting. Also, I love it. 
Tialiq