Lacquer Legion: Adoration – Tatooine Sunset

A few of my favourite bloggers, Chalkboard Nails, The Nailasaurus, Rebecca Likes Nails, and Work Play Polish have created a new monthly nail art challenge called the Lacquer Legion, and this month I decided to join in! This month’s prompt is Adoration, so I decided to try and combine a nail art technique that I love with one of my favourite nerdy fandoms – gradients and Star Wars!

Star Wars was my very first proper nerdy obsession, but I admit, I have been neglecting it for some of my other fandoms of late, so I felt it was time to give it some love again. I have done some Star Wars art before, in the shape of different helmets, but the idea of painting the famous Tatooine Twin Sunset came to me a few weeks ago, and I thought this nail art challenge would be the perfect excuse to try it out.

Solo thumb shot (Please excuse the cut!)

I started with a base of China Glaze Life Is Rosy, and sponged a gradient of Life Is Rosy with China Glaze Fade Into Hue once that was dry. After about 4 to 5 layers of sponging, I put one coat of Glisten & Glow HK Girl for a quick dry and to help blend the gradient together. The sandy tips are a mixture of Rimmel Beige Style, Beige Babe, and OPI My Vampire Is Buff. The suns were done using the end of a striper brush, with OPI MVIB again (middle finger), and Essence Free Hugs (ring finger). The dome of the Beru household was done using the sandy mixture again, and MVIB for the detail.

In hindsight, I should have painted the thumb design sideways on my thumb, as trying to take a photo of all of my nails together was awkward, and resulted in some creepy hand poses!

I enjoyed painting this for the challenge, even though I think my gradient could have been much better. Nice for the practice though! I can’t wait to see all of the other manicures from this challenge, I think there are going to be some great ones!

Nerdy Nails: Exploding TARDIS

My other passion in life, aside from nail art, is the many fandoms in which I currently partake. I love bringing my two passions together, and celebrating my fandoms in my nail art, so I am very happy to bring my Nerdy Nails back to the blog! I was really in the mood for a good nail art session this week, and after seeing this amazing rendition of the Exploding TARDIS on Adventures in Acetone a few months back, I knew I wanted to try to recreate it myself. Figured now was as good a time as any!

For some background, the Exploding TARDIS came about in series 5 of Doctor Who, as a painting done by Vincent Van Gogh in the episode The Pandorica Opens. One of my favourite episodes, with my favourite Doctor, so I was keen to try and do this as best as I could!

I started off with a base of Bobbing For Baubles from Essie (2 coats). The blue I used in the TARDIS pieces is OPI Keeping Suzi At Bay, and I mixed this blue with some white (NYC Pinstripe White) for some highlighting. The white detail for the windows and note on my index finger is OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (I really need to get a new bottle of this – I use it a lot for nail art, but it’s half gone now, and gone all Super-Gloop, and getting harder to use!). For the flame sections and spirals on my pinky and all of my right hand, I used Essence Little Miss Sunrise and OPI My Vampire Is Buff on their own, as well as mixing them for a paler yellow to add to the mix. The burnt orangey-red mix is a mixture of a bunch of colours just to add a bit of contrast (Essence Little Miss Sunrise, OPI My Vampire Is Buff, Barry M Mango, Rimmel Jungle Princess, NYC Fine Red Wine, Rimmel Celebrity Bash).

There was no way I was going to be able to paint a TARDIS with my non-dominant hand, so I took a leaf out of Jacki's book and just replicated some of the swirly flame aspects of the painting to bring both hands together. Everything’s topped off with two coats of Glisten & Glow HK Girl Topcoat.

This type of nail art always looks much better in my head than it does when I actually get to paint it on my nails, but I’m quite happy with how this turned out. And, as always, practice makes perfect, so I know all of these hours will pay off in the long run!

Lace pattern with Rimmel Salon Pro and Barry M Nail Art Pens!

Happy Tuesday!

I still haven’t gotten around to spending an afternoon doing a lot of swatches/nail arty things, so my post schedules are still a little haphazard/flying-by-the-seat-of-my-pants styleee. Hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll be able to devote some quality hours to my beloved hobby (although, with two UK trips and a move coming up in the next 6/7 weeks, that's probs unlikely. Nice to have goals though, eh?).

To the nails! Today, I'm showing you some new nail swag, in the form of the new Rimmel Salon Pro polishes, and Barry M's Nail Art Pens!

This swag was a complete impulse buy last week. I was in Boots for my bi-weekly perusal, which usually consists of me staring at all the lovely polishes, and testing my purchasing will power. Said will power went completely out the window once I saw that they recently stocked Rimmel's new Salon Pro range. After staring at all the bottles for an age, I finally decided on Barmy Blue, a new, lovely royal blue colour that I assume is in the core range, and Britpop, a cool blue-green from the Kate Moss shades. 

Just as I was about to walk to the counter, I spied the Barry M stand, and my eyes landed on the new Nail Art Pens, and I nearly mowed down a couple of fellow shoppers to get my hands on them. I limited myself to the black and white ones, as I figured I’d use those more (I've since gone back and bought the pink and silver pens, and I’m currently rattling my brain, trying to think of a good idea to use them for!).

So, I couldn't wait to break these babies open, so once I got home I got to nail artin'! I couldn't decide on what ones I wanted to use first, so I just decided to incorporate them all into this mani! I used Britpop on my thumb and ring fingers, and Barmy Blue on the rest. You could get away with one coat of Britpop, it’s a great opaque creme, but I used two here just to make sure my nails were covered. Barmy Blue is a bit more sheer, but two coats was all I needed for total coverage. I plopped a coat of Seche Vite on top to quick dry the polish so I could test out the nail art pens. I decided on trying my hand at a lace design for the first time, and used the black over Britpop, and the white over Barmy Blue, as I didn't think the black would be very noticeable over that one.

I really like the Rimmel polishes, the polish goes on well and the brush is nice and wide so minimal strokes are required (same as always with these bad boys). The star of the show for this one is the Nail Art Pens for me though. I absolutely LOVE these, they are going to completely change my nail art for the better. I’m still struggling with getting to grips with using the small, thin brushes for my art, but these pens are so easy to control, and I know I’ll be using these a lot! I'm particularly looking forward to trying out circular/spiral shapes, as they are my nail art kryptonite when it comes to using brushes! I really hope Barry M decide to release these in a bunch more colours, because they really are brilliant.

I hope y'all liked these today, and apologies for the wordy post! I just felt like adding a bit of a review on these I guess, particularly since I love the pens so much :)

Thanks for reading!

Ciao for now x

Easter nails with (mostly) OPI and Essence!

Howdy peeps!

I hope everyone is having a good long weekend, and enjoying the end of Lent and eating loads of chocolate!

In celebration, I’ve decided to decorate my nails with some Easter egg and chick and bunny art! I was thrilled to get stuck into these ones – the bright colours really cheered me up after the miserable week of snow and coldness we’ve had.

Nerdy Nails Issue 5: Doctor Who

Happy Easter y'all!

Hope everyone's enjoying the long weekend so far. Mine has just started, as I had to work today, but I'm looking forward to enjoying my three days off!

Today's Nerdy Nails are in celebration of one of my favourite TV shows, Doctor Who! DW is back this Saturday for the second half of Series 7, and its very exciting! So I had to do my nails in tribute to everyone's favourite Time Lord. As before, I'll try to keep it short, and explain the design for each nail and the colours used.

Nerdy Nails Issue 4: Star Wars

I'm really happy with how my Nerdy Nails turned out this week; after my mediocre Avengers attempt last week, I wasn't feeling too confident but I managed to pull these out of the bag. Star Wars holds a special place in my heart - it's the first thing I ever went totally nuts for, and the first fandom I fell into. I really wanted to pay a decent tribute to my first love, and I think I did a pretty good job. I'll try to keep it short, so I'll just list the character on each nail and the colours used.

Nerdy Nails Issue 2: Pac-Man!

As well as being a sci-fi nerd, I’m also a big lover of video games. There’s little I love more than sitting down and spending hours being immersed in a completely new world and forget about real life for a while. 

I have quite a few ideas inspired by my favourite video games that I want to try out on my nails, but I thought I’d start out with something relatively simple, so I decided on Pac-Man! Everyone loves this little circle “wakka wakka”-ing his way around the screen collecting his pellets while being chased around by the colourful monsters, Blinky, Pinky, Inky and Clyde. It’s a classic, but one that always frustrates me! I’m ashamed to say, I don’t think I’ve ever actually been able to get passed one level on this without losing all my lives! Clearly, I just need more practice! :p

So, for my nail art, I decided to dedicate each nail to the five main characters of the game.

Thumb – Pac-Man: I was dreading doing my thumb, as I knew I had to draw a circle free-hand. It didn’t turn out too bad, but this was my second attempt, the first was awful. Colours used were: OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (base), NYC Lexington Yellow (yellow), China Glaze Liquid Leather (black)

Index – Blinky: These guys were easy enough to do – I just painted my full nail the colour for the monster, then filled in the eyes and the black bits with a dotting tool and a brush. The main colour for Blinky was China Glaze Red Satin, and his eyes were OPI MBSW again, and Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream for the blue. The black is Liquid Leather.

Middle – Pinky: Next is Pinky. I followed the same method as Blinky above, the base pink is Show Off from Rimmel’s Lycra Pro range, and eyes and black bits are the same as above.

Ring – Inky after power pellet: uh-oh! Poor Inky isn’t looking too good! This is what happens to the monster when Pac-Man eats one of the power pellets, so he can eat these guys and give himself a break from the chase. Here, I used Essence The Boy Next Door for the main blue, and his eyes and mouth were done with Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream. Black is LL again.

Pinky – Clyde: I love that he has a normal name that doesn’t have any resemblance to the other guys. I’m also easily amused :p This little guys was painted with Coral from Barry M, with eyes and black bits the same as the rest of the guys above.

 

Here's a close up of ol' Pac-Man himself (I didn't notice the two random yellow spots until after I had taken the photos, I must have dented the polish doing something)

I could have done these guys a little better, but I’m happy with them for now. Pac-Man was the hardest, as I’m still getting used to free-handing art, but hopefully with more practice I’ll get there in the end.

Hope you enjoyed this issue of my Nerdy Nails. I have a great idea to assemble for next week’s edition, I just hope I can pull it off!

Thanks for reading!

Ciao for now x