Iron Man 3

Haven't had a chance to catch Iron Man 3 in the cinemas yet (cannot wait!) however from my comic book knowledge I was able to put together a nail design which is also based on the trailers I have seen.

On the thumbs I did a face fusion of Iron Man Mark XLII suit (a more golden suit in appearance than the Mark VII) and the comic book version of the villain the Mandarin. I used a sharpie to sketch an outline of the design and then used a dotter and toothpick to colour and fill in the detail. The background colour is Glitz and Glamour by Orly.

On the left hand index finger I did the Iron Patriot suit (Disney version of War Machine V2) that the character Rhodey wears. I used Silver Foil by Barry M, Konad Blue and Retro 3 Barry M.

Middle finger is the R.E.S.C.U.E suit (Rapid Evacuation Situation Control Unilateral Enforcer) that the Pepper Potts character wears. In the comic books this suit usually has a silver/chrome and crimson colour scheme or purple and silver in newer comics/cartoons. However from the movie trailers the colour scheme looks more similar to the Iron Man Mark VII suit. I used Rockin Rockette by Orly and Silver Foil by Barry M.

On the ring finger I did the Iron Man Mark VII suit which is what the movie starts off with (less golden compared to the new and improved Mark XLII suit). I used Flare by Orly and Retro 3 by Barry M.

I attempted the arc reactor on my little finger using Silver foil Barry M and adding a shimmery Etoile by Orly to help make it glow.

On my right hand I did the respective suits chest plate energy sources, so for the Iron Patriot on the index finger is it a star. R.E.S.C.U.E suit has a circle as well as the Iron Man Mark VII suit. I did the arc reactor again on my little finger and the fused faces for the Iron Man Mark XLII suit and the Mandarin.

I hope after all this waiting and excitement that it is a good film and better than Iron Man 2!

Shall update after I finally catch it ^_^

- Nail Art Love -

Where's Perry?

Agent P, one of my sisters favourite Disney cartoon characters. He is from the series of Phineas and Ferb and was the requested theme of her design I created.

She had recently bought Greenberry from the Barry M Gelly Hi-Shine collection which reminded her greatly of Perry the Platypus who is also a secret agent that regularly foils the evil villain Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz plans.

On the thumb is Perry's signature foot kick he regularly uses while in secret agent mode. In the cartoons whenever he uses this move they play the comic 'POW!' noise which I wrote across his foot. For the foot I mixed a yellow and orange together by BW shades A and B that came in a set. I used a black sharpie to write the POW! across.

On the index finger is his bad ass face he gives after foiling the evil villains plans. Used the A shade by BW to create his bill using a dotter and toothpick. I then outlined the bill with an orange sharpie. For his eyes I used Energy Source (white) by L.A. Colours with a dotter, dotted on top is You Don't Know Jacques! (brown) by O.P.I. Followed by a little bit of Black Velvet by L.A. Colours. I then outlines the eyes with black sharpie. Finally added a tiny white dot on each eye to help animate them ^_^ .

Middle finger is Perry's little platypus tail. I mixed Mud Pie (brown) by MUA with B (orange) by BW. Then outlined the tail with a black sharpie and criss-crossed on top.

The ring finger is his secret Agent P badge. I used Gold Foil by Barry M, then outlined the badge with a black sharpie.

Little finger is Agent P's hat, I was also able to squeeze in his inquisitive eyes. Mud Pie by MUA was used for the hat and a black sharpie to outline it all. For the eyes I did the same as the index finger.

Left Hand

I mirrored this design on the right hand.

Right Hand

I would be interested in doing more Disney cartoon character theme nails in the future ^_^

Who is your favourite Disney cartoon character?

- Nail Art Love -

Birds at dusk

Another one in the series of "I want to try my new colours ASAP!" Base is from Maybelline's Color Show Series and is called Purple Gem. The birds were done by drawing with a toothpick, meaning that some of the lines got squiggly or bumpy. To break the "birds sitting on a line" pattern I decided to paint "foot traces" on my ring fingers. The design was mimicked for left hand.

Dotted lines

I recently went off and bought some new colours, all of which I was very keen  to try out. These were two of them, Papaya from Berry M's Gelly series and Grey Matter from Rimmel London. I was unsure of how to combine them, but then came across this design of three dots with (at least attempted) decreasing size. Ring-finger designs have long been popular but because I was unable to decide which way around to flip the colours, so I did one hand of each.

The gelly polish isn't all that easy to apply since it easily becomes too thick. The grey one, however, has a really nice brush. The design is good if you want something plain, even work appropriate but still a little more than a single colour.

XKCD - because we are geeks

Have you ever come across XKCD? It's a brilliant online comic, occasionally (read: often) very geeky, written by the equally brilliant Randall Munroe and goes with the description "A webcomic about romance, sarcasm, math and language." It also has the following warning message: 

this comic occasionally contains strong language (which may be unsuitable for children), unusual humor (which may be unsuitable for adults), and advanced mathematics (which may be unsuitable for liberal-arts majors).

Amongst my uni friends it's commonly used for procrastination or random references and hence something I read regularly. Because it's mainly stick figures I couldn't resist trying it out as a nail design. I only found one other person online who'd tried it, so it was easier to find my own favourites with a bit of help from friends. 

I spent a fair amount of time sketching ideas. This included thinking about what would fit on a nail, which ones could be recognisable to regular readers etc. When asking around, Click And Drag came out as a big favourite, a strip which caused the geeks of the Internet to dance of joy. Because the image is huge, there was a lot to choose from, but most wouldn't be very easy to fit on a nail either in size or detail.

In the end, I opted for the following comics on my right hand: thumb, index, middle, pinky. The man, who I refer to as "hat man", on the ring finger appears often, so I decided not to note which comic this pose was taken from. The computer is admittedly also frequently recurring, but I remember writing that one down since it included more details.

On my left hand I tried including previously mentioned Click and Drag by drawing the balloon-flying character over ring and middle fingers. The pinky was used to type out the comic name, for those who might not recognise it (I was unlikely to forget myself), and on the index finger I went for this one.

On the right thumb, I tried drawing one of these guys but I was a bit too keen when adding the top coat so it smudged. I tried with the velociraptor from this one but would have needed a steadier hand (hence it not being shown).

As base I used Rimmel London's Grey Matter and drew with a nail art pen from Topshop (which unfortunately, after one use, has managed to dry up. It might have been cheapish but I expect more than that from Topshop!) Colour details were done with Sharpies.

I'm really sorry about the rotation, Blogger auto-rotates it for me but doesn't give an option of changing it back.

Leopard nails

Did you know that leopard dots were Gema's first design? I think it was about a year ago she tried it out, but I haven't got around to it until now. Why I don't know, I got distracted along the way.

The reason I decided to do them now was thatI wanted a fairly neutral design for when starting a new job. I've been told that many companies wouldn't be too happy with their employees using their digits as mini-canvases but luckily that is not often the case in engineering. 

The base colour I'm using is Mint Choc Chip by 17, a lovely colour but not very good quality - it chips easily. For the dots I used our beloved pin (from sewing kit) and then I drew around them with a permanent marker. As I applied the topcoat the marker smudged a lot more than I expected, which worried me, but at the end of the day it actually helped the design.

Pastel colours are also a great way of reminding yourself of the upcoming (sometimes visible) spring!