Lord of the rings, the fellowship! Lord of the Rings Nail Art!

To go with my Frodo Baggins Costume at this years London Comic Con I created a new set of LOTR nails. These were inspired by the Fellowship of the Ring film in particular the posters depicting the fellowship in silhouette.

Colours needed 

- gold

- black 

- green 

- yellow

- red

- orange

Thumb and little finger -  The One Ring (see past LOTR blogs for the full hand design of the one ring)

- 1 or 2 coats of gold varnish

- using a picture online copy sections of the elvish script onto each nail using a striper tool, if you work quickly and with new varnish if you make a mistake you will be able to quickly lift the design off rather than start over 

Index and Ring finger - The Fellowship 

- 1 or 2 coats of green varnish 

- choose your two favourite characters from the fellowship - mine were Boramir and Gandalf so I tried to outline their silhouettes

- I used a pin dipped in black varnish to draw these more intricate designs on (Sorry that in the picture I had not cleaned all the excess off my fingers)

Middle finger - The eye of Sauron 

- 1 coat of yellow this does not have to be perfect as you will mainly cover the yellow with other colours 

- using the striper create the elongated pupil of Sauron's eye, let this dry before you add the other colours 

- cut a small piece of a fine sponge - for example a make-up sponge and using tweezers dip the sponge in turns into red, orange, yellow and black varnish to create the fire effect of his iris. You will not need to use very much polish so I would recommend dropping 1 or 2 drops of each colour onto a piece of plastic and dipping the sponge into the drops to lightly dab onto the nail 

For my Comic Con costume I had one hand with this design and one with fire and gold, just like the ones in my Desolation of Smaug tutorial, except this time they represented the fires of Mount Doom. 

Do not forget to finish each design with a final coat of top coat once they are all dry to protect your designs.  

Harry Potter Quidditch Nail Art

Another Harry Potter design for you all. I've found a really good new nail varnish, sold by Superdrug, its their own brand called B. The range is lovely, in particular the base for this design, colour 180 Midnight, its a rich slightly glittery dark blue, and I used it on top of a base coat as the back ground colour.

So for the design they are based around elements of Quidditch.
On the little finger I have a deep red "Quaffle" ball, simply added to the nail with a dotting tool.
Next I have a Gryffindor flag, like the ones on top of the stands in the HP films, simply made with a very thing brush in brown for the pole, and then in red and yellow that tappers out towards the points of the flag.
Middle finger is the snitch, simply a dot of gold using a dotting tool, then using either a thin brush or a pointed nail art tool create the shape of the wings either side.
Next I have the goal hope, thin brush or pointed tool again to draw three lines of varying lengths and then the circles on top.
Thumb is a simple lightning bolt, I layered a matt gold paint with a glittery gold to add a little extra shine.

All over each nail I used the end of a sharpened pencil dipped in silver varnish to add little dots of varying sizes, just to add a slightly wintery effect, obviously you could do these designs on a light blue background in summery months. Hope you liked this design, keep an eye out for more in the near future. Thank you for reading.

Desolation of Smaug - Hobbit Nail Art

Happy Hobbit weekend!! In honour of the newest instalment of the Hobbit franchise, I recycled my nails from last year which I absolutely loved. On my left hand I have "one ring to rule them all" in elvish and on the right I have fire over gold to symbolise Smaug's fire. 

So here is how I did them after applying the initial base coat:- 

The One Ring

1. one or two coats of gold paint (LA Colors) 
2. once this coat has dried you can go about painting the elvish script, using a very thin home-made detail tool, its best to work quickly and with new varnish so if you make any mistake they will lift off rather than having to re paint the whole nail ( I selected the first part of the elvish script that reads "one ring to rule them all"
3. once you are happy with your design finish off with a top coat to protect your design

The Fires of Smaug

1. one or two coats of gold
2. then using these colours, black, red, orange, maybe yellow or gold too use a thin detail brush to build up thin almost fork tongue like flames, you can also add some glittery colours to make the fire more "magical" 
3. once you have built up the flames you'll want to fill in the tip of your nail with a mixture of the same colours so they look like the heart of the flames. 
4. once happy top coat the design with clear to protect the design

Hope you like these designs and enjoy the Hobbit film. Thank you for reading.

The name's Bond, James Bond Nail Art!

This weeks nails are inspired none other than 007 himself. I addapted these from my Harry Potter nails from a couple of months back.

They are really simple even the thumb was quite easy, sorry the photo doesnt show the thumb's detail very well.

Tuxedos

1 - base coat to protect your natural nails once this is dry apply a coat or two of black varnish and allow it to dry

2 - using a thin brush or white nail art pen create a V shape at the tip of the nail, then you can add the detail for the lapels of the jacket, if you dont have a steady enough hand the design looks okay without the lapels

3- using a dotting tool, or as I did a sharpened pencil dipped in black varnish create two or three buttons on the shirt and then add a bow tie, just make an X at the top of the white tip and fill in either side

Gunbarrel Shot

This iconic shot from the opening credits can be quite simply recreated

1 - like with the above design one of two coats of black varnish

2 - using a thin brush or white nail art pen create a circle in the middle and fill it in white

3 - either continuing using white like I did or use silver with a thin brush draw the curved lines to give the effect if the gun barrel, it may be best to work from a photo off the internet to add more detail or add your own artistic flare as mine doesnt look amazing

4 - optionally you can add your own little Bond to the centre of the circle, he doesnt have to be a feat of amazing artistic prowess just a basic image, I used the sharpened end of a pencil dipped in varnish as it made my work a little more accurate

5 - using my tips from the blood drops in previous blogs add the last element of the blood dripping down from your nail bed

Shakened not stirred

Though I havent provided a picture on the other thumb I painted a very simple martini glass outline (with a thin brush) with two olives in (using a dotting tool), which is just an idea for another bond related nail art idea.

Thank you for reading this, hope you enjoyed it and it gave you some idea of what to paint. Feel free to comment or suggest designs I could do :)

Happy Halloween all! Halloween Nail Art

Happy Halloween to you all. I entered into the halloween spirit this year with these sets of nails.
They were all so simple to do and I hope they prove useful in your weekend halloween celebrations.

Skull

1 - One or two coats of white nail varnish (I used L.A. Colors which I can get really cheap in London)
2 - Using either a thin brush dipped in black, a black nail art pen or the special bottles of fast drying decorative nail varnish create the outlines of the cheekbones and fill in the corners of your tip in black
3 - Then using a dotting tool dipped in black or your thin brush if you arent ham fisted like me, create the 2 dots for the eyes and the slits for the nose, then finally the very simple mouth

Spider Web

Very easy but requires a steady hand, I think this decoration looks best against a bare nail but it can be used on top of any halloween design

1- Starting in one of the bottom or top corners of the nail paint using a thin brush black lines radiating out, I think it looks best if they get paler towards the ends of each line
2- Join the lines with slightly curved shorter lines inbetween

Blood drops

I love this design, I do it often when I dress as a corpse bride for fancy dress or fright night themed events.

1- tip the nail with a nice blood colour (I used Mavala Tobago shade which has a lovely shade to it, its quite expensive for the quantity you get but a brilliant brand, lasts forever) it doesn't matter if the tip is messy as blood doesn't run neatly
2- using a dotting tool create 2 or 3 dots of "blood" at varying distances from the tip, across the nail then join the dots to the tip making them look like running dots of blood

On my right hand as I am awful with detail when painting with my left hand, i simply painted the nail black and added a red black widow marking on top.

Pumpkin

1 - 1 or 2 coats of orange nail varnish (if like me you don't have orange nail varnish, its not a colour I would usually wear then just do some primary school art and combine red and yellow until you have the desired shade)
2 - once that's dry add the green leaves to the top messily as the leaves don't have to be perfect
3 - then add the face, you can vary faces between nails which looks really good if you do the design across each nail (I used L.A. Colors Art Deco lacquer brush for the designs)

Frankenstein 

Don't really need to explain this one its simple, green nail then the black stitch marks across it, but if you want Frankenstein nails across all you fingers you can add a silver bolt to the little finger and thumb, maybe messy black hair line on the middle finger, or even very simplified faces on them.

Once all your designs are done finish the design with a top coat to protect them.

Remember, while nail varnish that is reaaaaalllllly artistic looks lovely, if like me you haven't got an artistic bone in your body, these simplified designs can work just as well and are just as effective.

Thanks for reading hope you liked the designs, feel free to comments or suggest designs in the comment box.

Happy belated star wars weekend! Han Solo and Chewbacca nail art

As many of you know the 4th May is better known as May the 4th be with you day. So all in all a very Star War-sy bank holiday was in order. I celebrated by designing a set of Han Solo and Chewbacca inspired nails, as with most of my designs they are simple yet effective, (well I think so anyway).

Sorry as per usual about the quality of the photos I am working on getting better quality shots. 

Now on to how they are done, obviously you don't have to do one design per hand I just liked the duo together! 

Colours 

• LA Colors Brown 
• LA Colors Silver 
• LA Colors Black 
• LA Colors White 
• Off-white, skin tone (or a mixture of yellow and white)

Chewbacca nails

1- base coat to protect your natural nail

2- layer of brown nail varnish - I chose a slightly glittery varnish so the lighter tones in it would mimic Chewy's fur, you could use 2 shades of brown flecked together to create a fur effect too

3-  once dry use a detail brush dipped in grey or silver to create his 'sash', you want to paint this from the left to the right of the nail as that's how he wears it. All you need to create is two lines of dashes 

4- again once this is dry apply a top coat to protect the design

Han Solo nails

1- base coat 

2- layer or two of white varnish for the shirt, I added a touch of yellow to my white to create the off white shade that best resembles his shirt, though its not very clear in this picture

3-  using a black detail brush and black varnish create and fill in the outline of his waistcoat on top of the white shirt, the waistcoat curves a little at the top and always looks closer at the top than at the bottom so I angled my lines as best as I could to mimic this

4-  you could leave the design there or add the 'V' neck line of the shirt in a skin tone using a detail brush. I personally think the 'V' set off the design and made it a lot more recognisable. 

5-  top coat to protect the design and you are finished!

Hope you liked my designs Thanks for reading :)

The Deathly Hallows! Harry Potter Nail Art

Anyone that knows me knows I am a huge Harry Potter fan! I was inspired by my visit to Levesden Studio tour to do some simple HP nail art! Sorry again about the poor quality of photos.

Colours 

• Black 
• White 
• Red 
• Green 
• Blue 
• Yellow 

Method 

Deathly Hallows symbol - 

Paint your thumb completely white, when this is dry use a narrow detail brush  to create the triangle, circle and line of the symbol. If, like me, you aren't very good at drawing circles it helps to do it in sections. The good thing about this design is if you make a mistake its simple enough to just start again.

Robes -
Again a base coat of white, doesn't have to be perfect as not much will be seen. In the 4 colours of the Hogwarts houses, red, green, blue and yellow paint a little triangle in the middle of the tip of the nail and a line running down the nail for the tie. Then using black, might want to use a detail brush to outline the edge to prevent mistakes, leave a gap between the tie and the robes and paint the rest of the nail black for the robes, and there you have it, black robes, white school shirt and the house tie.

Hope you liked this design!  :)