Naturally Nails: Butterfly wing ombre

Hey Hey

Happy Belated Valentine’s everyone! Hope you had a great one with friends, family or special other half. I had a whale of a time helping my friend chase a girl for vday! Mine was spent rather quietly at my other half’s humble abode. We prepared our own army stew pot and basically dumped all kinds of delicious goodness into the stew. HAD A SUPER HEARTY MEAL! And a great time cooking it as well. We never like celebrating Vday on the day itself because everywhere is too damn crowded. Even terrible restaurants sprout ridiculous queues. Yup, just becomes a super turn off even if we had pre booked seats. Imagine Vday when we hit 6.9milion. WOW. I don’t even wanna think about it.

Nonetheless here’s what I did on my nails to celebrate the coming of my recess week! WHOO to being able to leave my nail colour longer than 2 days! =)

Base: OPI The IT colour
Gradient: OPI the IT colour à OPI I eat mainely lobster à China glaze ruby pumps
Design: TFS black, Etude house white

BAM! I am so proud of this design, so proud that it brings tears to my eyes! Real tempted to change my thumbnail now. Can you tell that they are butterfly wings? Specifically it is modelled after the Monarch butterfly! Drew inspiration for 2 vids on YT and put my own gradient spin on it. This is by far, my most ultimate, intricate, awesome nail design ever that took FOREVER to finish. The sheer amount of work that goes into painting on the wing design really takes a toll on your concentration. Nonetheless, the effort is totally worth it. LOOK AT THE END RESULT! A show stopping design IMO. I, obviously love this design the MOST! AMORE! Can't wait to show it off! *Breaks into song* "Oh I just wanna show you off to ,y friends, making them drool down their chiny chin chins"

Fair warning, this design is not the easiest and requires a heck load of patients and a crazy amount of OCDness to achieve

The breakdown

1. Paint a yellow/light orange base colour over the nails (OPI the IT colour)
2. Create your gradient on a sponge and dab all over nails making sure to blend blend blend (Best gradient nail tutorial by nailasaurus     HERE)
3. Wait for polish to completely dry and in the mean while clean up the edges of your nails
4. Using a stripping brush, dip into black polish and draw on the butterfly wings meticulously. This step takes the longest. (Pssst: A good tip is to draw the lines away from you as this makes the brush much easier to control. Sometimes, moving your fingers while keeping the brush in the same place also works)

NOTE: Round out any sharp edges esp where the lines intersect. – This is the part where you need to be very OCD about the edges if not they won’t look real. I couldn’t do them at well as I wanted to but still OK

5. Using a dotting tool/ toothpick, randomly dot on some white dots but rmb to add some where the vertical lines and horizontal tip meet.

6. Add rhinestones as you wish. Use SMALL ones so they look more intricate
7. Wait at least half an hour or more before applying top coat. You do not want to smudge your design after you’ve gotten this far. Patience, patience, PATIENCE!

Tada you are done! And I just lost my train of thought… ok OK right got it back. Basically you want to be very patient with this design. Definitely works with other colours as well. Just model them after the colours of butterflies to make them for realistic. Bear in mind thought that dark colour will not make the black wing design stand out.

Hallelujah! I have successfully made OPI the IT colour work. Terrible colour SOLO but gradient when used with other colours. Added in rhinestones for the fun of it, afterall rhinestones never fail to glam up anything it’s put on. 
Ugh, some of my lines aren’t as crisp as I had wanted them to be and some edges aren’t as round as I wanted them to be but hey, nobody can seem them from afar right! Super proud that I could achieve the same design on my right hand, drawing with my left hand really tested my hand dexterity max. Well right brain, you have served me well!

Swatches:
OPI the IT colour 
OPI I eat mainly lobster
China glaze Ruby pumps

Here’s a narcissistic picture of my thumb on which I think the wing design looks the best on! Probably because there is a bigger surface area to work with so I can draw more lines!

Totally can’t stop looking at my nails now. Imma continue to gaze bimbotically at them through the week and marvel at my work of art! I am not an artist and drawing ain’t my biggest forte, it fact it’s probably one of my worst so being able to pull this off really amazes me. Ahhh there ain’t no better art than nail art. It’s so unbelievably therapeutic. ESP when the you reap the fruits of your labour at the end.

Anyways, CHEERS to the coming of my recess week. This week shall be spent wisely!

~END~
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