Meet Lionel Steve Jefferson 1st! Penguin Nail Art!

Meet my friend Lionel Steve Jefferson I (not completely sure where the names came from...). One of my closest friends loves penguins so I was inspired to paint him. For something so simple I think he looks very effective, and he got a lot of good responses.

Colours - 

• Barry M Black
• LA Colors White 
• Orange Varnish - or mixture of yellow and red. 

Method - 

1. Base coat (helps protect the nail)
2. Apply a coat or 2 of black varnish. Barry M is quite a thin varnish so I applied 2 coats for the best coverage.
3. Once dry I did his little tummy, using a smaller detail brush to create the white oval shape
4. Using a dotting tool I created his eyes first with white ovals and then added 2 black pupils. 
5. His beak and flippers were a little trickier for me, not because they are hard to do but I couldn't find a nice shade of orange that wasn't neon. So I improvised, mixing red and yellow to create the right shade. Its always a good idea to mix your basic colours for small details rather than buy an entire bottle. Make sure you use a surface that the varnish wont react with or damage and blend a couple of drops of each colour. If you mix a large amount of a desired colour its always a good idea to by some cheap make up brushes to apply it with. 
6. Allow the design to dry and apply a top coat to protect it. 

Hope you like my penguin as much as I did. Thanks for reading :)