Staticky TV Screens

So, remember when I said I was next going to be taking it easy? Lies.

Still with the winter thing. The street is so deeply rutted with ice that driving IN the ruts is a death wish for your car's undercarriage. I've considered hiring a Sherpa for all my travelling needs.

I was taking a look at the LeaLaC plate I ordered from Llarowe last month and was struck by the rounded rectangles (3rd row from bottom, 4th column from left). They kind of reminded me of a bank of TVs, and my mind wandered to horror tropes of static-filled TV screens, kind of like this. (Note: I don't watch horror movies, I am the least qualified person to being mining them for inspiration.)

AND THEN I thought of something much happier, which is Persona 4. I think Aegis from P3 remains my favourite Persona character of all time, but Kanji from P4 is a close second. What a dreamboat.

Soooo anyway, the TV screens! The Midnight Channel! The static! The swallowing up our brave protagonists!

The steely hair of our unnamed hero, to match his steely will! Ok I'll stop now.

Depressingly, this took about as long as the Valentine's nail art I did, except the results are nowhere near as impressive. And it was a huge pain in the butt. HUGE PAIN IN THE BUTT. There is, however, one upside-- and I will get to it in a little bit.

I'm getting more consistent with hand position, which is a small victory I suppose.

The first step was getting the static going. A full 7 steps went into building it up. I started with Nfu Oh JS03, followed by a heavy dose of the spun sugar technique (I did it MUCH thinner than XOXO Alexis Leigh is doing it in the video, but same principle) with GOSH Nero, again with the spun sugar in Revlon Spirit, then spent a dizzying amount of time dotting Nero and Spirit all over the place with my tiniest dotter, followed by another coat of JS03 and a coat of American Apparel Moon. Then NYColor Grand Central Station to get it all to dry so I could SLEEP.

DOESN'T EVEN LOOK LIKE STATIC

This afternoon, I stamped the shapes over my nails with the LeaLaC plate using Nero again, and then whipped out my tiniest brush to fill in the in-between spaces with the black polish, add teeny silver dots to represent the TV knobs, and little reflection marks in white to try to give some dimension to the TV screens. Then two more coats of topcoat to even it all out, and a bit of clean up, and finally done.

You can see some of the neurotically thin spun sugar effect going on at the edge of my nail.

But, in a way, this was a worthwhile endeavour, because I got to use Moon. (My partner has been bugging me to use it since the day I bought it and, if nothing else, this mani makes him very happy.) Because Moon DOES THIS!

This photo involved tenting a blanket over me, a self-timer, manual shutter speed, manual focus, and a slapdash process of charging up the nails by lamp, hitting the shutter, shutting off the light, and stopping breathing.

So there you have it. A mani for all of us with a soft spot for horror films and/or Japanese RPGs.

Polishes used:

Nfu Oh - JS03

GOSH - Nero

Revlon Top Speed - Spirit

American Apparel - Moon

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Silver Sweep

OPI - Nail Envy Matte (base coat)

New York Color - Grand Central Station (topcoat)

J.

FOIL MANI OF DOOM: What Happens When You Use Craft Supplies For Nail Art

Were I Taylor Swift, I'd be furiously scribbling away right now. This manicure and I are never, ever, EVER EVER getting back together. It's awful and I hate it.

I also took these photos outside in -10˚ weather, because I love you, you know.

I'm trying something with these subtler watermarks. I initially thought huge, tacky watermarks would deter stealing, but then came to the conclusion that nobody is likely jonesing to steal these, so I may as well play it classy.

Oh, foil mani, I so wanted to love you.

I found this awesome variegated foil at the neighbourhood art store and thought to myself, "Hey, Ciaté has some fancy set out with stuff like this, I bet this works just as well!" If it does in fact work just as well as this, I'm not clear on why anybody would ever buy/use it.

This is as close to a macro as I'm willing to go, and it makes me cringe.

I started with a coat of Poshé base coat (I tried nail glue over base coat first and it was a hot mess), then waited for it to be semi-dry and swiftly pressed a little square of foil into my nail, smoothing it as best I could with a couple of fingers, trying to get into the corners, etc. Didn't work. Jagged edges, breaks, holes, the whole shabang. Once I got it to a state that was at least half-decent, I gave it a light coat of CND Super Shiney top coat to seal it. Then, once dry, to cover up the awful edges, I did a box frame with black polish (should have used acrylics, my GOSH Nero is in full thickening rebellion) and my one-stroke brush. Because of the crinkly texture of the foil, it was impossible to get a smooth line, so you ain't getting a true macro of this one, sorry bub.

All in all, this took forever, I only did one hand, and I spent most of my time going cross-eyed. I think it looks pretty neat for what it is, but will leave this to more talented folks than I.

I like that my watermark is basically invisible. I think that's called defeating the purpose.

Polishes/supplies used:
Poshé quick-dry top coat
Speedball Simple Leaf metal foil in Variegated
CND Super Shiney top coat
GOSH Nero
One-stroke brush (squared-off)
Buttload of patience

Think I'm going to go for something simple next, and will be ambitious again nearing the end of the week...

J.

FLAKIE GRADIENT OH YEAH

This one is going to be picture-heavy. There was no way for me to capture the true multi-chromatic awesomeness of this manicure, but I gave it my most valiant shot. This is my take on the matte flakie gradient over at More Nail Polish.

drool

A quick run-down of the method here, and then I'll let the photos do the talking. I started with a base of GOSH Nero, a super-opaque black creme. (Actually, it's kind of thick, so I thinned it down some to get it to better self-level.) I then did vertical stripes of Nfu Oh 38 (red-orange flakies that shift to golden-green), Inglot 205 (golden-green flakies that shift to aqua), Nfu Oh 39 (bright green flakies that shift to turquoise), and Inglot 204 (glowing deep blue flakies that shift to royal purple; this is the only transition that I just couldn't eke out for these photos). I did the same pattern on my ring fingers, except using horizontal stripes, and I mattified the middle fingers.

more drool

excuse the lesser quality; I was drooling away in the car for this one so I had to use my phone

rainbowsssss

I am unclear on how I will ever one-up these puppies

Here is a huge picture to show the multi-chromatic shift as I change the angle of my fingers:

editing this in Photoshop made me realize how much I suck at Photoshop

And, lastly, an awkward, too-dark video to show this manicure in action. Maybe eventually I'll be better at stuff like this. Not going to put any money on it.

While I was out stomping around in the snow taking most of the above photos, a raven came to visit! These photos do absolutely no justice to his(?) size. A seriously amazing bird. The height of my forearm, easy, with (of course) an impressive wingspan. Love!

And just for the heck of it, I got my Black Milk order in the mail yesterday, and now that I own Mucha leggings, my life may well be complete:

La Trappistine leggings by Black Milk Clothing, as viewed through a crappy phone pic

I am plotting seriously awesome things for the beginning of next week, which I hope I will pull off as awesomely as I have them in my head. We shall see!

Polishes used:
Nfu Oh - 38, 39
Inglot - 204, 205
NYC (New York Color) - Grand Central Station (topcoat; loving it so far)
Essie - Matte About You


J.