Tuesday 27 September 2011

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...


















Created on 16th September.
This week was the blu ray release of the Star Wars box sets at work so obviously I had to get me some Star Wars themed nails to celebrate and promote.
Took me a little while to figure out what to put on each nail but once I'd decided it wasn't difficult to design. It did take a long time to get all the detail in some of them though.
I made a conscious decision not to involve any of the three prequels as we don't talk about those. Instead I decided to use characters good and bad, ships and lightsabers (and of course I had to write 'Star Wars' in the proper title style on my thumb nails). I also put a bit of glitter on all the nails with a black background to make it starry, although you can't see it very well in the pics I have.
My favourite is definitely Boba Fett as I really wanted to get the detail in the battered helmet (plus I had to draw his little antenna on my finger to get the full effect). R2D2 comes a close second, if only I could've made him project a mini Princess Leia.

Better pics with the glittery star detail:
(Note how I put a bit less on the Death Star nail as it had already destroyed a few. RIP Alderaan.)

Land Ahoy!


















Created on September 9th.
I was finding it difficult to come with a theme this week so I did a bit of internet exploring and decided to create some nautical nails. This has been done a lot by many people so I wanted to make sure I did my own spin on them but still using only a few basic colours.
The important things to get in there were the symbols, like the anchor and the ships wheel, and the nautical stripes. The rest of them I just thought up as I went along.
My favourite is definitely the compass rose because I really wanted the detail to be nice and sharp and it came out better than I thought it would.
(Thanks to my friend Marta who came up with the lighthouse idea when I couldn't decide what to do with the final nail.)

Seasons change...


















Created on 1st September.
This week I noticed that leaves had begun to fall off trees, the weather was getting cooler and signs of Autumn's arrival were everywhere. As I didn't want to believe that summer had ended just yet, I decided to create Summer to Autumn nails, Summer on one hand and Autumn on the other.
I did a bit of research into classic seasonal plants, food, drink, weather etc. and came up with some ideas for each nail. Unfortunately, as you can see below, the Autumn ones didn't work out so well so I gave up on the idea and realised we had a while left of Summer fun to enjoy. Originally I was going to do blackberries, an acorn, an umbrella, a hot coffee and a hedgehog for the Autumn nails but I decided to stick with my summer nails; a strawberry, sunflowers, a sunset, a cocktail and a ladybird and repeat them on both hands.
The sunflowers came out a bit different on both hands because I was experimenting with styles and colours. Also decided to do different colours for the cocktails.

Fright Fest


















Every year on August Bank Holiday weekend they hold 'Fright Fest' at Leicester Square's Empire cinema. As I'm a huge horror fan I always try and go to at least one screening. This year I could only afford one so I went with my friend Nyssa to see 'Urban Explorers', set in underground Berlin a small group of tourists go down to explore old Nazi warfare rooms and shit gets real basically.
So to celebrate the fun of Fright Fest I decided to go for some blood nails by stippling on different shades of red, gradually getting darker towards the tips to create a blood dipped look. As my favourite film of all time is George A Romero's Dawn of the Dead it though I'd write the tagline and the best quote of the film 'when there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth', to make my nails a bit more original. I then decided to write 'Fright Fest 2011' on the thumbs just to promote the awesome festival.
I actually tweeted a pic of these nails and tagged @film4frightfest and got a retweet and comment from them which made my day!
(Just to let you know I'm @FilthWizard on Twitter of anyone fancies following my day to day explorations/ moaning.)

Wednesday 21 September 2011

Off to see the Wizard...


















Created on 20th August.
These are my favourites so far as I love the little details I put into them.
I was watching this movie and thought it would be a great idea to do my own nail interpretations. I had to start by making a list of things I wanted to include in the designs, like the rainbow and the ruby slippers, then decide what nails to put them on.
I was originally going to write 'No Place Like Home' on the gingham nails but they took me so long to paint I didn't want to clutter them up with words and ruin the patterns.
In case you're having difficulties telling what they are, there's the rainbow, the yellow brick road, the poppies that make them fall asleep (my favourite line in the film "Poppies will put them to sleeeeep" because of her wicked voice), the emerald city which I added glitter to make it shimmer, the witches broomstick, the pattern of Dorothy's blue gingham dress and her ruby slippers which I also added glitter to.


I later added clouds and a bird to the rainbow nail as I was originally going to write 'Over the Rainbow' but decided to keep all my nails text free.

Fruity friend


I did these nails on my friend/wifey. She likes my creations and wanted something funky on her nails to show off at work. She wanted some melons so she showed a few ideas she had for them and I set to work choosing the right colours and creating the designs from links she'd seen online.
By the way in terms of nail varnishes I use, it's mostly cheap ones like Barry M, Rimmel, 17 and Collection 2000 as they all have nice bright colours, even if it does take a few coats to apply. I also use Professional Nail Art pens to get the small details.

Pop art


















Created on 13th August.
At the time I did these nails I was reading all of the Walking Dead graphic novels as I'm a big fan of horror and zombies. This made me want to do something cartoon like. Therefore I used pop art as the inspiration to create something fun and colourful.
I also regularly go on http://fuckyeahnailart.tumblr.com to search for nail art inspirations as there's tons on there.

First nail art!

These were created on the 6th August 2011. I have a few creations back catalogued, once they are up I will be posting new ones on a weekly basis.
This is my first venture into the wonders of nail art. I decided just to create a few random shapes and designs to begin with to test my capabilities. I have done simple things like hearts and flowers before but this was the first time I had done anything as detailed as the eyes.