Nintendo Love

Sosososo apparently it's year of the Luigi! Yeah, I don't know either. Click on the Luigi if you want to figure it out for me.

Anyway, what better way to celebrate Nintendo than some Luigi nails? Yes, yes? I love the Mario Bros. franchise. Love the games. Mario Kart? Yes. Old school Mario? Yes. Super Mario? Yes. Yoshi? Definitely. Daisy? Kicks @$$.

Anyway...above is the finished product, and below I'll share a few work in progress shots. 

I'm so exciting! A blank canvas, yay!

I started with a base of NYC: French White tip on all fingers except my thumb, which has a base of Zoya: Holly. Using a hole protector (those white donut-shaped stickers) I covered the white area for the mushroom face and painted above using Holly. I then used a bobby pin to make the polka dots on the mushroom heads. I used a toothpick to draw the eyes in Sally Hansen: Black Out. 

Unfinished mushroom!

On the ring finger, I used a makeup sponge to dab on a mixture of Zoya: Rocky, Penny, and Sally Hansen: White Out. This is going to be Luigi's skin color. 

I added the hat much in the same way as I did the tops of the mushrooms. Covering the majority of the nail with the hole protector sticker, I painted just the top portion with Holly, and after that dried, added the 'L' symbol.

This is what my nails looked like overnight...to finish the next morning, I used the "decal" method. I mentioned it last time here, but just in case you're too lazy to actually click that, I've copy-pasta'd the important bits below:

"FYI: the decal method (is how I'm going to refer to it) is like making a sticker out of your nail polish. Take a plastic bag, like a ziploc, lay it down on a flat surface. Paint with your nail polish on top. Leave it to dry overnight. Peel it off in the morning and you can stick it straight on your nail (without adding any glue or clear polish or anything! It just sticks by itself). For best results, start with a wide base of clear polish and mark where the polish ends with a brightly colored polish. You can also trim these decals to fit your nail! So useful. More on this next time!" 

That's what my bag looked like! Sorry for the horrible picture, but it's pretty hard to photograph a plastic bag without getting some glare. I made multiples of the faces and 'L' signs because I had tried this one before and I knew there was potential for messing it up along the way since so many steps were involved.

Step One: paint a boundary line with bright colored polish
Step Two: paint clear coat within that boundary
Step Three: paint another clear coat
Step Four: paint each layer of color separately

Now add between at least ten minutes of waiting/drying time for each layer and up to seven layers for Luigi's face and you get a LOT of waiting...but it was worth it!

If you wanna see the thumb again, just scroll alllll the way back up! :)

Unfortunately, my clear coat smudged the mushrooms quite a bit...I gotta get my hands on some Seche Vite! That's all for now...if I missed anything, or if you have any more questions, let me know!

I might be busy moving back into college and switching gears from summer to school in the next week or so, so don't expect too much new material. If I have time, I'll definitely put up some last summer pictures before I start thinking about nail designs for the fall! Thanks for reading!