Jme's "Inspired by" Entry - Dong Dong Crystal Sand 04 and 21

Here is my entry for the "Inspired by" competition organised by More Nail Polish here!

Yes alright, my geeky side is showing. How embarrassing! However, I couldn't help it. At that time, I was only inspired by this:

That fine figure from behind is really inspiring! No wait, I mean, the new Spider-man suit is really inspiring! Everything just looks so very touchable. Um. Yes. I was talking about the suit. Totally.

IN ANY CASE, Spider-man manicure! It was so much fun to do!

I wish I took more pictures, but I'm a genius and only managed a couple shots before I decided to run off to do other stuff and promptly chipped the mani. :( It was a small chip, and I wore this mani for almost a week anyway (what a record!).

Here are the nail polishes I used to do this manicure:

Yes, the Dong Dong nail polishes! This post consists entirely of inappropriate stuff, how awesome is that? I have swatched them in the past, so have a look at how shiny they are originally.

My steps to create this Spider-man mani are:

1. Paint the red polish on as a base, before applying a coat of quick dry top coat.
2. Tape away part of the nails before applying the blue nail polish to create a similar shape to that of the colour separation on the back of the Spider-man suit.
3. Another coat of quick dry top coat over the lot, before drawing in the black lines for the spider-webs and the spider logo using an Artline 200, Fine 0.4 tip pen.
4. Essie's Matte About You over the lot

Matte-fying glittery polishes produces matte manis with a lovely shimmer that does a passable imitation of how latex-y fabric would look like, in my opinion.

I considered using my nail art pens to draw in the black lines, but I never find any of them fine and thin (in colour) enough to produce the effect I wanted. A tip I have for using Artline pens for arty manis is to draw very gently, otherwise you will dig into the polish. My second tip would be to apply your matte top coat as fast as possible, and use as few strokes as possible when applying it. Certain fast dry, glossy top coats will smudge the ink, but I find matte top coats to be pretty good at preserving the ink without smudges.

I took some artistic liberties with this Spider-man mani so it's not an exact copy in many ways. Still, it really was a fun mani to have on my nails!

And now, one last thing...