AT-AT Walker

Hello lovelies!

Continuing with the theme of nail art requested on Instagram, here is an AT-AT, doin' its thang on Hoth. Technically there is a coat of nail polish underneath everything, but you can't see it. Everything you see is acrylic paint.

I decided not to topcoat the AT-AT as I felt that made it stand out from its surroundings more.

And a sunlight shot! Glossy topcoat is glossy.

Materials include:
acrylic paint in white, black, ultramarine, Van Dyke brown, Indian Yellow hue
small flat square brush for background
detail brush for AT-AT
INM - Out the Door (topcoat over background only)

It felt good to get back into detailed nail art like this! Doing the clouds made me want to do some Prairie sunset nail art, which I will hopefully get to soon.


J.

YODA YODA YODA

Warning: this one's gonna be a bit picture heavy! And I just bought a light box, and I have no idea how to use it, so some of these are overexposed like it's going out of style (which it is; it is out of style).

A friend of mine posted a photo to my wall of Zoidberg nail art, suggesting in a way that I do nail art that uses all 5 fingers together instead of treating them as 5 little separate canvases. He then jokingly said, "Do Yoda!"

So I did Yoda.

HIYAH!

This took forever and a year, but I'm pretty pleased with the result. Not sure that it looks like Yoda (and Younger Yoda's hair is creepy and I wish I'd just left him bald), but it took a lot of patience and layers and so I love it on the principle of effort paid.

This is my source image:

I butchered him ;___;

This is another image that popped up while I was searching:

I may need this in my life.

I began with a base of Jaded (two coats; it's a beautiful, subtle scattered holo polish in a nice crelly finish but mine was mysteriously sort of... sticky? So I may thin it just a bit in future) and one coat of Street Magic. The combination was super-pretty, so here is an shot of it. Excuse the dry cuticles; that's what prepping with acetone will do to ya.

I'd get into the actual painting method, but it was long and complicated (and sort of not really a method); it involved sketching the source image at a 1.5" x 1" size, transferring it to my nails (this was a pain), outlining with black acrylic, and then doing a sort of riff on Paint by Numbers to get the colours down.

MOAR HIYAH!

If you zoom this, you can see micro-cracks in the acrylic paint, and that's WEIRD.

 Putting the pose together requires a very awkward hand position. Ouch.

Last one, I promise. I wish I could do straight lines better with my detail brush. Poor lightsaber.

BONUS: the lightsaber glows in the dark! I couldn't get the neon green colour out of my acrylics (working only with sap green), so I made up for it by making it glow. :)

I love that the lightsaber is the only thing you can see. You get the idea!!

Polishes used:
Tryst Lacquers - Jaded (base colour)
Girly Bits - Street Magic (on top of base colour)
OPI - Nail Envy Matte (base coat)
INM - Out the Door (top coat)
Poshé (top coat)
GOLDEN Open acrylic paints (highly recommended; do not dry out as fast)
0/10 brush of pure detail looooove <3

Not sure what I'll do next, but it probably won't be so involved. Heh.


J.