Thursday, June 27, 2013

Remember Me!

It's no secret that I watch Let's Plays, and I've been looking forward to Remember Me! Now that it's out and completed by my favorite player on YouTube, I've watched it and it was so good I had to make a tribute. 



In the game they have something called a Sensen, which looks like the round logo (except that it has a few layers and it's always moving, and it's a bit blue too). So I decided to make a clean design with the logo! 



I painted my nails orange (Again? What's wrong? Why aren't all my nails blue any more?), except my ring finger. Then I spent some time recreating the logo with orange acrylic paint. I finished with a layer of the polish to get the exact shade (except over the shaded parts of the cube) and then I outlined it with black. Here's my right hand for comparison.




As you can see, my damaged nails are slowly coming back! Yay!

I don't know why my top coat decided to bubble on these. I've switched from Seche Vite, which was giving my issues with lifting, to Essies "No chips ahead", mostly because I was so annoyed with the chipping and lifting from Seche. I'm not sure if I love or hate it. 
I love it because man, my polish lasts forever! If I top coat when I'm finished with my design, and once more the day after, they stay without chipping or lifting for a whole week, and it probably stays decent for nearly two. I switch too often for that though. It's also shiny. Not extremely but definitely enough.
I dislike it because it's not fast drying. Many times I've painted my nails in the evening and gone to bed about an hour later, and woken up with fabric imprints in the polish. It also bubbles sometimes. I think it's when I'm too impatient and top coat a bit too quickly, before the polish underneath is completely dry. Seche never gave me that issue. But still, No chips ahead is a good top coat, and I will use it until I run out! Then I'm gonna try get my hands on Insta-Dri by Sally. I've heard good things about it. 
/end rant
Tialiq

Friday, June 21, 2013

Midsummer!

In Sweden we celebrate Midsommar, midsummer, when the night is the shortest of the whole year. We traditionally dance around a big pole, a Midsommarstång, that looks like a big **** (which I think is hilarious). So of course I painted one on my nails! 




I started with a sky blue base, and made a gradient with white. I did this so I could paint on a white surface, to make the colors brighter. It's vital, trust me. 




Then I started adding grass with a dark green polish. I swiped off as much polish as possible off the brush and then stroked lightly from the tips in towards the nail. I did the same with a light green on top, but heavier. The darker green disappeared and gave it depth. Then I painted a few strans of grass with green acrylic paint, but not all the way to the tips. Having polish around your edges makes it last longer! 
Then I painted classic midsummer flowers: Cow parsley (Hundkäx), Wood cranesbill (Midsommarblomster) and Oxeye (Prästkrage).
On the ring finger I crated the traditional midsommarstång shape, and covered it with colored dots to represent flowers. I finished with a layer of glitter. 




Tialiq

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Delirium!

So, I love to read, and I recently read the Delirium trilogy. It's amazing. So I decided to make a tribute. This is what the cover looks like in Sweden :


And here are my nails touching the book. The cover is actually kind of metallic and shiny!



I started with blue, and then I sponged on a kind of turquoise color. 




It made it more of the color of the cover. Then I added Luxe and Lush, a flaky glitter. I painted tendrils with black acrylic paint, and added thorns. Then I made three small thorns for petals at the cuticle, and put a red rhinestone there to symbolize the rose on the cover. I also added smaller stones on the sides. I'm still not sure if that was a good idea! But they looked amazing. I think the index finger turned out best.





Sending Internet love! <3
Tialiq

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Anivia! + New Technique?

So I've started watching LoL streams recently, and I was catching up on the Spring Playoffs, and saw Froggens amazing Anivia play. I thought it was so cool, and had to do a nail art. 
 

I sponged on white on 3/4 of my nail on all nails except the ring finger, and then a few layers of a light blue. I covered it with glitter, and painted diffrent kinds of snowflakes with white. On my ring finger I painted it all white and sponged on blue. Added glitter and tried to make feathers with very thin black paint. But since Anivia has kind of icicle-looking feathers, they turned out like scales which is not what I was aiming for at all. But it still looked cool! I added a bit of dimension on the tips of the featheres with white paint, and sealed it up.



Then, I felt like wearing orange. Me! 
 
I had this idea in my mind of orange and dark blue going fantastically together. So my first idea was to add fishnet, sponge on the blue, and get a cool scale-y design. But that didn't work. So when I sat there with an orange nail covered in dark blue, I panicked and wiped it off with my finger. And it looks gorgeous. 

 This is what my fingers ended up looking like!

I added silver star studs, and holy crap it looks epic. It is super simple, and I will definitely do it again! It looks sort of like a streaky crackle polish, or weathered paint. You can do it with clashing colors like me, or similar colors for a cool background! 
Someone has probably done it before, but I just randomly did it and saw how awesome it turned out and just had to share! After all, that's what this blog is for!
Tialiq