Anna Inspired Frozen Nail Art

It's "inspired by a movie" day in the 31 Day Challenge and I've done some nail art inspired by a movie that is sure to be a popular choice among other participants this year: Frozen! These tips are inspired by Anna's dress, which itself drew inspiration from a traditional piece of Norwegian clothing called a bunad. Her look features a black bodice, gold lacings, and flower details.

Nail polishes used:
Formula X Dark Matter (black)
Deborah Lippmann Autumn In New York (gold)
Essie Mojito Madness (green)
China Glaze Happy Go Lucky (yellow)
Misa Loveliest of Lilacs (purple)
Misa Lovely Lychee (pink)

I painted my nails black and then added the gold tips using the fishtail technique. The flowers and stems were painted freehand using my Edinburgh Realism #4 brush, and I used a pinpoint and small dotting tool to add the decorative dots. Everything is sealed in with two coats of Glisten and Glow HK Girl.

I have done quite a few movie manicures in the past! Check out what I've done previously for the challenge:

• Star Wars inspired nail art
• Eye of Sauron nail art from the Lord of the Rings trilogy
• Titan nail art from the movie Hercules

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The Disney Diva - Ursula Nail Art

The Lacquer Legion's theme this month is "Fandom." Where do you even start with that one? There are SO MANY POSSIBILITIES! I've actually done quite a few fanicures in my day. Mythbusters, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Adventure Time...the list goes on. This time, I chose to do more Disney villain nail art. You may recall the Queen of Hearts mani I did recently, and here's another powerful baddie: Ursula from The Little Mermaid!

Here's a fun fact: did you know that Ursula's design was inspired by the drag queen Divine? Makes sense to me. Ursula is a pretty fabulous diva, despite being evil and all. There are some pretty diva-licious Disney characters, but for me, she takes the cake.

For my nail art, I've painted her tentacles on my four fingers and her *ahem* bust and necklace on my thumb.

Polishes used in this nail art include:
Floss Gloss Moon Baby (grey base)
LVX Aster (light purple)
OPI Do You Have This Color In Stock-holm? (dark purple)
Nicole by OPI Hit the Lights (yellow)
American Apparel Hassid (black)

I started each tentacle by painting a dark purple spiral and outlining it with black. Then, I filled the spirals with light purple dots, and stacked a smaller dark purple dot inside it.

Though the process for Ursula's tentacles seems simple enough, they took a while to complete. The hypnotizing spirals really demanded a lot of precision, so I tried to take it slow.

Follow The Lacquer Legion on Facebook or Instagram for once monthly nail art prompts aimed at bringing together the nail polish community!

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Sunset On Tatooine - Star Wars Nail Art

Today I have a bit of geeky nail art to share with you! If you are a fan of Star Wars, I'm sure you know about Tatooine. The planet was both Anakin's and Luke's home and is where Luke first meets C-3PO and R2-D2 in A New Hope. This nail art shows Luke with the two droids as the planet's twin suns set on the horizon.

The background of this nail art is an incredibly subtle gradient of OPI Going My Way or Norway? and OPI Ice-bergers and Fries. The silhouettes of Luke, C-3PO, R2-D2, and the Lars homestead were painted with OPI How Great Is Your Dane?. All three of those shades are from the new OPI Nordic Collection. I am loving the two caramel shades, in particular.

The ground is painted with OPI I Sing In Color, while the suns are done with Lime Crime Milky Ways and Lime Crime Peaches <3 Cream.

The manicure is finished off with OPI Matte Topcoat.

This nail art ended up being pretty timely. A few days after I finished it, a group of us watched A New Hope! If only I'd still been wearing it that day.

Are you a fan of Star Wars? Which one is your favorite?

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Off With Their Heads! Queen of Hearts Nail Art

Who can resist a bit of villain nail art? This design is inspired by The Queen of Hearts from Disney's Alice in Wonderland. While she's not my favorite Disney villain (that honor would probably go to Jafar, or Hades), I do like her and have an appreciation for her one-strike ruling style.

Off with their heads!

The thumb is inspired by the front of The Queen's dress. I started with a base of OPI Alpine Snow. Once that had dried completely, I blocked off two large stripes stripes using straight Nail Vinyls. Then, I filled in the left side with American Apparel Hassid, the right side with OPI Coca Cola Red, and the center with OPI In My Back Pocket. I freehanded on the black details in the center with my nail art brush, and removed the vinyls to reveal the white stripes.

The playing card nails are inspired by her card guards, of course! The heart and diamond cards were painted freehand with OPI Coca Cola Red, while the spade and club nails were done with American Apparel Hassid.

The entire manicure is finished with a coat of Seche Vite.

An added bonus... If you remove the thumb from this equation, you have a sweet Las Vegas playing card manicure!

Who's your favorite Disney villain? There are so many great ones to choose from!

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31DC2013 Day 23: Inspired by a Movie (Hercules)

I have a deep love affair with Disney movies, and one of my favorites is Hercules! In the beginning of the movie, the Muses, who are the storytellers, give you some background on what's happening by showing short, stylized animations as if they were coming to life on Greek pottery. If you haven't seen the movie, you can check out what I'm talking about here (my specific inspiration starts around 1:20 in that video).

So what I've shown are the Titans from the movie! Rock, wind, ice, and lava. On my thumb, I've depicted the thunder bolts that Zeus uses to trap the Titans in the ground.

The base is China Glaze Bend Over Backwards, a glowy red-orange that matched the inspiration image beautifully. The Titans are freehand painted with Essie Licorice and the white pieces were done with Color Club Mod In Manhattan.

For the matte photos, I added OPI Matte Topcoat. I personally prefer the matte finish for this particular manicure because it gives a more antiqued finish.

The modified Greek key French tips look a little shaky in macro photos, but I think they look pretty solid in person!

With topcoat, the base polish looks super glowy and the black looks bolder and more contrasting! Which way do you prefer it?

Here's a combo for your pinning pleasure!

What's your favorite Disney movie?

More 31 Day Challenge
View upcoming prompts!
My movie nails from 2012!
My movie nails from 2011!

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MINIONS!! - Despicable Me Nail Art

Last weekend I went to go see Despicable Me 2 with my sister, and I just couldn't resist doing minion nail art! I have seen so many cute minion nail designs (most recently from Rebecca Likes Nails, though I don't think she has posted them up yet) and I knew I wanted to try one out for myself.

I had a lot of fun assembling the pieces for each of their faces -- eyes (both placement and quantity), mouth, general expression -- they are all unique!

For those of you unfamiliar with the minions, here's a good YouTube montage of minion clips. The minions are basically the main character's creations, and he uses them to help him execute his evil plans. They like to goof off though, and are a huge part of the comedy in the movies! Very endearing.

For my version, I started with a base of Lime Crime Crema de Limon.
Then, I added the eyes in white, and the irises in China Glaze Call of the Wild. I outlined the goggles with A England Fated Prince and added the strap in black.
The tongues are done with Zoya Renee.
Lastly, I added their overalls in American Apparel Mount Royal, and distressed them a bit with China Glaze Secret Peri-winkle.

The movie turned out to be really cute, and I liked knowing I was watching it with my own little minion buddies!

Plus, we went and got Dairy Queen afterwards... Choco Cherry Love Blizzard!

Have you seen Despicable Me 2 yet?

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