Holy Nail Art, Batman!

I started playing Arkham Asylum months and months ago but then stopped making time to play it. Things just got crazy busy with work and I spend nearly all my free time nowadays on this blog! Well I woke up on this fine Sunday with a couple of hours to spare and decided to give it another crack. I definitely need to put a bit more time in and complete it! 

I've done Batman nails before but these are distinctly more Dark Knight themed. I love Dorian Gray, it's an incredible polish - like a gun metal grey/black. If you like your black polishes like me, check out A-England's Gothic Beauties,

I used A-England Lancelot as my base and A-England Dorian Gray with a nail art brush to draw on the bat. I created the gradients on my thumb and pinky using the same two polishes following this tutorial.

It's all topped off with two coats of Sally Hansen Insta Dri.

Previously: Batman and Foes, Harley Quinn

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Unknown a-england, black, freehand, Nerdy

31DC2012: Day 23 Inspired by a Movie

I'm here with Day 23 of the 31 Day Challenge and the film I chose is Watchmen. We all know how I love everything superhero so this was the obvious choice as I've exhausted most of the other ones. If you haven't seen the film, watch it!

This is the first really detailed freehand nail art I've done for absolutely ages and I love it! I wish I had more time these days to do nail art like this. I miss it!

Don't forget to stop by Nails and Noms and Let Them Have Polish to see how they're getting on with their challenges.

Thumb to pinky: Silk Spectre, Dr Manhattan, Watchmen, Rorschach (kind of!), The Comedian

All the details were freehanded with nail art brushes and here's a run down of the polishes I used...

Urban Outfitters Denim Blue, Cult Nails Quench, Essie Mezmerised, Collection 2000 Sherbet Lemons, W7 Black, Barry M White, Deborah Lippmann Fashion*.

I also used white and black acrylic paint here and there for the small details.

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Unknown 31DC2012, Comics, freehand, Inspired, Movies, Nerdy

YEAH SCIENCE! Breaking Bad Nail Art

Breaking Bad is a series I started watching ages ago but I only saw the first few episodes before I was distracted by something else. Well I picked it up again yesterday and have been watching back to back episodes since! A few episodes in to my Sunday afternoon marathon, I decided I had to dedicate some nail art to Walt and Jesse.

The Radioactive and Biohazard symbols don't fit perfectly in to the theme but when I posted these yellow nails way back when, someone said they looked like Breaking Bad Nails. So I thought I'd slip them in there today.

I used BYS Fern as the base colour on my first and middle fingers, then painted on the frame and lettering with white acrylic paint and a striping brush (pictured).

I painted a base of Barry M White on to all the other nails before adding Collection 2000 Sherbet Lemons for the yellow and H+M New Moon for the 'crystals' (unfortunately I don't have a blue flakie!). The black details are acrylic paint, again with the striping brush.

If you're wondering what the nonsense on my ring finger is, it's the 2D structure of Methamphetamine according to Wikipedia, so if there are any chemists reading and I got it wrong, go easy on me!

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Unknown freehand, Inspired, Nerdy, white, yellow

Playstation Nail Art

I find I have less time to do intricate and basically 'cool' nail art these days. I don't really have much to say about them except that I think they're awesome. Enjoy!

I used W7 Black as a base and painted on all the details using acrylic paint and a striping brush. Finished off with two coats of Cult Nails Wicked Fast.

Previously: Guitar Hero Nail Art

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Unknown black, freehand, Nerdy, w7

Social Media Nails! Also, who wants to Pin for me?

I mentioned last week that I had started a new job but I didn't give too much away because, ya know, it's private and all that. All I will tell you is that it has something to do with social media so these are the nails that I wore to the interview in an attempt to stand out a bit from the the other applicants. I drew the company logo on my other hand but that was too ugly to photograph! As it turned out I got way too shy and didn't just want to say 'Hey boss man look at my nails', even though we discussed this blog and the fact that I do nail art which would have been a perfect segue for me to show him.

I tweeted the nails to him a fews days later anyway and ended up getting the job. Whoopee! It may or may not have been because of the kick-ass nails - who knows?!

I've painted social media nails before and the only differences this time are my much shorter nails and Pinterest in the place of Blogger. This leads me to a very exciting little announcement...

I'm looking for some guest pinners for my 'Nails' board on Pinterest!

More pictures (there are a lot!) and details about Pinning are after the jump!

I looove Pinterest and spend a lot of time browsing on there but I suck when it comes to actually pinning great stuff. I already have a 'Nails' board on there which is covered in pretty nails, but I want it more covered! Now this could all go awfully wrong but I'm gonna go for it anyway! 

The plan is to add a few guest pinners to the board who can bulk it out and just make it a great board. I'm looking for people who are great at pinning and really know their nails so if you think you're up to the job and would like to be considered, please follow these instructions:

Email me a with a link to your nail board (contact info here)

Make sure the subject line reads 'Guest Pinner'

Easy as pie!
Submissions are now closed. Thank you!

I will choose my favourite Pinners as soon as possible and they will all be contacted. I'll try my best to get back to everyone whether the answer is yes or no but this is a one woman mission so obviously if there are stackloads I won't be able to. If you haven't heard back within 2 weeks from today (July 13th), assume you were not selected.

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Unknown Barry M, freehand, Nerdy

Guitar Hero Nail Art 2.0

Back in January, I got my Guitar Hero set with one game - Warriors of Rock. 6 months later, I'm still playing it and I have 4 of the games! I really thought it would just be a bit of fun and a passing fad but I'm still completely addicted! I'm more of a drumming girl but guitar is fun too!

I did do some GH nail art back then but I wanted to update it a bit since I'm now an 'Expert' which means I get to use the dreaded orange button! I thought I would take advantage of my square shaped nails and just frame them because they're pretty much exactly the same shape as the buttons on the guitar.

I used W7 Black for my base colour. Next I took Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White to draw on the frames before adding the colours to make sure they'd be as bright as possible.

The colours are an unnamed red from L'Oreal Resist and Shine, NYC Lexington Yellow, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Sun Kissed.

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Unknown black, freehand, Inspired, Nerdy

Avengers Assemble!

I finally went to see The Avengers (or is it Avengers Assemble now?!) today! It was released last week here in the UK but today was the first chance I got to go and see it!

Of course, I loved it but I was distraught to find that there was no stinger at the end of the credits. Even though I'd already read that there was no final surprise on the UK release, I waited right until the very end out of habit and defiance anyway! I almost feel cheated that I went to see a Marvel movie and there was no credit cookie!

Well these are the nails I wore which I kind of threw on last night but you can see some more in detail Avengers nail art from the archives here.

The base colour is Rimmel My Denim and I used a coat of Girly Bits Cosmic Ocean on my pointer for a bit of sparkle. I used Barry M Silver Foil and black acrylic paint for the 'A'.

I'm slowly falling in love with Rimmel polish. I've been finding a lot of them at bargain prices recently and although I probably wouldn't pay full price (£3-5) for them, I find myself reaching for the ones in my collection a lot recently.

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Unknown blue, Comics, freehand, Girly Bits, Marvel, Movies, Nerdy, Rimmel

Black and White Challenge Day 5: Color base with Black

I'm so excited to post today's nail art! For Day 5 of the Black and White Challenge - Color base with Black, I've created some nail art inspired by the One Ring from The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. I was going to wait to do this for the release of The Hobbit which I thought must be some time soon but it's not until December!

This nail art was first posted on Billy the Brime's Tumblr and couldn't wait to give it a go myself. Allison's mani is more accurate to the original source material than mine and fair play to the girl, dang that inscription is fiddly!

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them

One ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

I used Barry M Gold Foil as my base colour and black acrylic paint with a nail art brush for the details.

Don't forget to visit the other ladies' blogs to see their Day 5 manis!

Rie at Nails and Noms

Cris at Let Them Have Polish!

Esther at Fab Fingertips

Stephanie at Sincerely Stephanie

Emily at The Laquerologist

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Unknown Barry M, black, Black and White Challenge, freehand, gold, Nerdy

Dr Seuss Nail Art!

 10 days ago, the lovely Danielle let me know about a nail art competition Nylon Blogs were holding to celebrate Dr Suess' 108th birthday which you can find here. To date they still haven't posted a winner, which is kinda sloppy on their part since it was supposed to be posted last Tuesday. So I thought I'd just post mine here already because it doesn't look likely that they'll ever post the winner's manicure and I can't hold on to this for much longer!

I don't think it needs too much explaining since Seuss' work is so iconic. I had to include the 'Sam I Am' sign because of course, I Am Sam! The windmill looking things on my middle finger are truffula trees from The Lorax. Obviously then we come to The Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham.

It was all freehanded using a nail brush, the outlines are black acrylic paint and if you want any info about the polishes I used for a particular part just ask below!

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Unknown freehand, Nerdy

The Amazing Spider-Nails (Spider-man Nail Art)

So I'm sat here trying desperately to some up with an idea for some awesome nail art and I have my new Cult Nails colours on the desk next to me, I'm eyeing them up and browsing the internet pointlessly like I always do and I see that The Amazing Spider-Man is trending on Twitter... *lightbulb* 

The reason for it trending is the 2nd trailer which hit the internet this week after its Super Bowl spot. I watched it first thing this morning which has renewed my excitement for the movie and my love affair with Marvel/Superhero nail art!

I used Cult Nails Quench as a base then freehanded the tips with Cult Nails Time Traveller using a nail art brush. All the details are also freehanded with Barry M Silver Foil and I outlined the eyes with black acrylic paint.

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Unknown Barry M, Comics, cult nails, freehand, Marvel, Movies, Nerdy

Pac-Man Nail Art!

A few days ago, a twitter friend suggested I do Pac-Man nails and I instantly jumped on the idea! Pac-Man was on my short-list for the Week of Geek but didn't end up making the cut and I guess I just forgot about the idea until Araneae mentioned it.

I used yellow (George Buttercup shine) as a base for my ring finger and black (Rimmel Black satin) for all the others. I used a nail art brush to freehand the outline of Pac-Man with black acrylic paint then black polish to fill out the remaining bits of nail.

For the ghosts, I used white acrylic paint to make out the shapes and then coloured them in using Miss Sporty Orange, Barry M Raspberry and L'Oreal Bebe. The blue of the maze is Barry M Cyan Blue which I painted on with a striping brush and I used a dotting tool with La Femme Grey Cream for the pac-dots.

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Unknown freehand, Inspired, Nerdy

Some Assembly Required (Avengers Nail Art)

Superhero nail art has become such a fixture on here that I'm considering dedicating a label to it!

 Earlier today, I came across a gallery of minimalist (my favourite kind of 'ist') Marvel hero posters by artist Marko Manev which you can see here and naturally my first thought was 'they would look good on my nails'.

I decided that to make it a nice neat set, I would just do the designs corresponding to the Avengers minus Captain America because I've already done a design exactly the same.



Thumb to pinky: Thor, Hulk, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Black Widow

I used:
Thor: Barry M Raspberry, white acrylic paint, La Femme Grey Cream, Barry M Mushroom, L'Oreal LaquiResist Black Bean, Barry M Grey
Hulk: Collection 2000 Hot Looks Spangles, BYS Fern, La Femme Grey Cream
Iron Man: La Femme Cherry Red, white acrylic paint, Collection 2000 Moonlight Shine
Hawkeye: Models Own Purple Grey, La Femme Grey Cream
Black Widow: Rimmel Black Satin, white acrylic paint, Barry M Raspberry


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Unknown Comics, freehand, Marvel, Nerdy

Superheroine Nail Art

Since my Week of Geek and the amazing positive reception it received I've been jotting down every nerdy nail idea that comes to me! Miss Dalum suggested that I do a Superheroine themed mani which I think perfectly compliments the Marvel Heroes themed nails where I only featured the fellas! There's a mix of heroes from Marvel and DC in here today. 

While we're on the subject, has everyone seen the trailer for The Amazing Spiderman? It looks, well, amazing! You can see it here if you haven't yet.

Pinky to thumb: Mystique, Jean Grey/Phoenix, Catwoman, Spiderwoman, Wonder Woman 

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Unknown Comics, freehand, Marvel, Nerdy

'I've had enough trouble for a lifetime' (Harry Potter Nail Art)

How could I not dedicate today's nails to Harry Potter?! I've read all the books and seen all the films so I, like many, will be sad to see the end of the series. I'm not actually sure when I will be seeing the film. I could go on Sunday but I don't like going to the cinema when it's really really busy so I'm tempted to even wait until next week! I know that conviction won't hold up for very long though!

Here's some trivia for you. J.K. Rowling grew up in the area that I live in. I even went to the same high school she did!

Thumb to Pinky: Deathly Hallows, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Hufflepuff.

I used Bundle Monster plate BM20 for the stripes.

When I was checking the house colours (I know them of course, but I wanted to check I was 100% right because it would have been super embarrassing if I used the wrong colours) I found an interesting article about the significance of the colours which you can read here.

Polishes used:

Deathly Hallows - Rimmel Black Satin, white acrylic paint

Houses: Base colour first, stamp colour second

Slytherin - BYS Fern, Collection 2000 Moonlight shine

Ravenclaw - Collection 2000 Unnamed Bronze, NYC Glossies 243B

Gryffindor - La Femme Cherry Red, Sally Hansen Chrome Amber

Hufflepuff - George@ Asda Buttercup Shine, W7 Black

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Unknown Books, freehand, Movies, Nerdy, Theme, Tribute