Saturday, March 3, 2012

Penguin Skittles Fail

Once again, it was time to see my pain management team. For the first time in months, I felt up to doing a fun manicure for my doctor's visit! Unfortunately, this time it just wouldn't work the way I wanted it to.

I've been itching to try to do something rainbow-inspired since I got the China Glaze Electropop collection. The colors are just so vibrant and fun! I wasn't up for anything too detailed, though, so I decided to do a skittles manicure, then paint penguins on top of it.

Instead of using nail polish for the details, though, I decided I would use acrylic paints instead. I've got some ideas I want to do and I think acrylics would work much better, as well as being easier to correct if I totally make a mess of things. This would be a great way to get used to using acrylics, right?

Clearly, I need lots of practice. From what I can tell, my paint was much too thick, and I was trying to get the details opaque with one coat. Bad idea! Then, I added top coat before the acrylic paint was completely dry which made the paint do weird cracking things and make bubbles. After that, I added another coat of topcoat to try and smooth things out and added even more bubbles!

This was a total mess... but at least I've learned something. Oh, and to add insult to injury, I photographed it last night and figured there was no harm in removing it. Then, when I got the pictures in to crop for the blog post I found that only two shots were usable- the two I combined for the pic in this post.

Oh well... better luck next time!

Painting is HARD!
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14 comments:

  1. Ahahahah, indeed, some weird effects in there, but nothing really noticeable. I had to enlarge the picture to actually see what you are talking about :P But you know what? I love that manicure! I never had the fever for acrylic paint on nails... I guess I feel better now, apparently they have a lot of issues along with them.. I'll stick to nail polish to make my nail art :D

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    1. Yea, it was definitely acceptable unless you looked at it super-up-close. My right hand was weirder, mainly because I ended up with pink on the high points of the white for some reason! No idea how that happened. Overall, though, it's cute.

      I don't think acrylic is better or worse for nail art, really. Both have their pros and cons, you know? But for the type of work I'm planning, I want to be able to remove errors with water instead of having to remove the whole thing and start over!

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    2. Oh, right! I was completely forgetting about that! Acrylic paint comes off with water ;) Yes, indeed better than having to start all over :P

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    3. Totally! I'll get the hang of it sooner or later. :D

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  2. They look so cute still! Love them!

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    1. Thank you! I'm a bit penguin-obsessed, from my penguin socks and penguin pajamas to my penguin shower curtain. It's only fitting that I have penguin nail art!

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  4. Omg, they are so CUTE!! You can't even tell anything's wrong! I think I have to pin this, even though I haven't done anything to my nails in forever (aside from trimming!) Thanks so much for sharing!

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    1. Thank you!! I do penguin nails periodically, just because I love penguins so much. I keep intending to do a realistic one, but I just like the cartoony ones so much!

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  5. One of the other nail blogs I've read suggests using rubbing alcohol to put the acrylic paint on to help thin/smooth it out. So instead of dipping your brush in water, dip it in the alcohol and then in the paint. I've done this before and it does work well!

    I love the penguin look though! All very cute ^_^

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    1. That's a really interesting idea! I just spray mine down with a water mister periodically, and that keeps it workable. You can also use a bit of extender medium that makes it dry more slowly. It seems like since alcohol evaporates faster than water does that alcohol wouldn't keep the paint workable for long. Dunno, though...

      Thanks for the tip! I'll give it a try!

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  6. Wow these nails still look amazing!!! I think i might try this style with nail art paint pens....or those little brushes that make the designs (srry dnt kno what there called) btw i love ur nail degins there beautiful (plz egnore that i cant spell)

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    1. Thank you! I'm so glad you like them... I like doing fun nail designs! Nail art pens would definitely work well for this design.

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