Viva Character Nails!

I love love love character nails! However it was not a secret that I kinda hate to make them as it usually requires detail and comparability to what kind of character are you drawing. One slight miss (eyes too big, nose too small, et cetera) will ruin the whole balance and you're done for.

I've tried to practice my character nail art several times, some turn out quite good, some were ok.. some were a total mess hahaha. Well, I guess practice makes perfect?

So here I am showing you guys several of the characters that I've been trying to make (and worth to be posted) in the span of 3 years. Most of them were gel polish however I've tried to experiment with acrylic paint too in some of the designs. 

Nighmare before Christmas Series, and Sasaki from Tokyo Ghoul which once I'm obsessed with. On the very right was the super failure Daenerys from Game of Thrones. I think I should try to make it once again in the near time, see how much I have improved in drawing still life...

Lilo 3 years ago, Lilo 2 years ago, Lilo 1 year ago. Not so much improvement.. But glad I can make the line thinner in the Tinkerbell one!

Just some random character.. Moomin, the once-hyped Minions (I don't quite like them though).

Sailormoon nails!!! I've made this recently when I'm in a full nostalgic mode back from my visit to Sailormoon Exhibition which you can see the post here. Quite proud of these pieces :)

And this one is a very random character nails that I've tried to create myself as a requirement for a small nail design challenge online. Haven'y get the result yet, didn't expect to win too as long as I'm having fun with it.

And I think that's all with my character nail journey which definitely were not finished yet.

I realize that character nails is one of the nail art type which everybody likes for sure, and wanted to do even just once in their whole lifetime. So will definitely practice harder to make it perfect so that I can bring an ear-to-ear smile for my future customers later!

See you on my next post!

Final Project: Monster University 3D Nail Art

Previous week, I have to make my last project as a graduation requirement for my last nail school. How fast time flies! Long before I knew it, it has been one year since my first nail class here in Japan and now it’s the time to combine all things that I’ve learned for one year into one work of a nail art set.

It is required by my teacher to make a combination of flat art and 3D nail art in one set of 10 chip nails. As for the theme, she gave us freedom to choose.

So as for this time, I’ve decided to make a Monster University themed 3D nail art set, as I loooveeeee Monster Inc series so much. I can literally buy every souvenir with Mike and Sully in it if I were in Disneyland.

This is my base design for all the chips. Later you will see the result is quite different from the written design, in a good way though,

Step one was the preparation of all the nail chips, painted it with a normal white polish.

Next is painting the backgrounds with acrylic paints, start from the clouds.

And adding details like trees, grass etc.

Finish with the chips, now moving to the hard part, creating all the 3D figures.

I made it all with the regular white and clear acrylic powder and liquid; the same ingredients which are used to create acrylic extensions.

Actually for the figures, I bought several colored acrylic powder thinking that the color will be bright enough even without coloring it with acrylic paint. However, I was wrong.

This is the first base figure that I made. Hi Mike, Hi Sully!!

Since the color didn’t stands out as much, I repaint it again with acrylic paint. Waste money for buying the colored powder -__-

I know It’s not as identical as the real Mike and Sully, but oh we... at least I tried.

And next, made the gates, and the MU flag. The flag part was my favorite!

I've decided to not make the other two figures, Randall and the other one that I forgot his name, since the space is not enough for both of them. However for exchange I made several other small parts that were not on the planned design before, just to fill the empty spaces between the figures that I feel needed. The bats and MU small flags.

Finish making all the parts, I arranged and stick all of them with acrylic powder to the painted nail chip. Finish it with a generous top coat so it will look more glossy.

To make it prettier to be submitted to my teacher, put it in in a mini decoration box! And it’s all done!

It took me around 4 hours to finish all of them, yeah, not as fast and as professional as I thought, and not as clean as I expected it to be. See my table in the process even I’m impressed with myself hahah.

A BIG MESS. hahahah.

However, for the time being, I’m quite happy with the result. Considering I BARELY touch 3D nail art at all (yes, I prefer detailed flat art) I can say this one is quite a success for my standards.

How's your thought?? Let me know!

See you on my next post!

Tokyo Nail Expo 2014

I know it’s superrrrr late, but I want to blog a bit about my last year November’s visit to Tokyo Nail Expo in Tokyo Big Sight, Odaiba. Because I thought the next Tokyo Beauty Expo is starting soon, this will be a good chance to share what will it be look like in a beauty event itself. Although this time of event focus is for nails only, I think the flow and the feeling will be more or less the same.

The event hall was only 10 minutes walk froma station called Kokusai Tenjijo.

I went with my classmates in nail school. Before we enter, somewhat we have to buy the ticket around 3000yen/pax, but since we were a student, our teacher have given us and all of the student free entrance to go, so, we can avoid the ticket queue which is quite frustrating long.

Once we enter the site, the crowd can be seen everywhere.

What I can found in this Nail expo is, several things such as nail competition, art exhibition, special event sale (which already well known that in this event, usually all nail equipment such as LED light + colour set, brushes, accessories, stones etc is below usual average price, so expect a very long queue only just to pay), nail art demo, free nail class, new spring style trend introduction, free nail art (usually only 1 finger 1 person per stall) and so on.

This event is basically an annually long awaited nail event in Japan which famous for its advanced nail art, so people from all around the world such as USA, Singapore, Taiwan, and China all came here. And of course almost all the famous nail-related company brands have their own stall here. 

Quite crazy.

This is one of the teachers giving a free nail art demo, and the result is very pretty!!

And this is another crowd watching other nail art demo in another stall.

Usually each stall/brand has its own free nail art demo and it’s schedule, so we can pick which demo we would like to see. Of course, the latest trending nail art style demo will have unbelievable crowd waiting.

Tired of seeing several demos, I decided to shop a bit (even takes around 3 hours only to queue..) and take a look of the nail art sample which were placed everywhere.

OMG all so damn pretty I don’t know how they can make it???? Strolling around, “tsk tsk tsk”-ing samples cause amazed by their skill here. Japanese really take it to another level.

WTF just how did they make it???????

And several nail set introduced for nail competition.

Not to mention predicted spring style and color trend too.

Overall, if the amount of crowds were to be put aside, this event rocks. As a nailist it is heaven. All the colour, utilities, etc it was worth it to save all the money and spend it here.

What I learn from my visit were these things:

•  Instead of bringing credit cards, bring a lot, lot of cash. Of course several stall can use credit card but most of them are cash only. Even stall that receive credit card, usually only open 1 register specified for credit card, so imagine the queue. I spent most of my time queued for credit card because I don’t have enough cash to pay.

• Bring compatible food here. Bread, onigiri, milk whatsoever. There will be not enough food stall, not enough seats so literally everything have to be done while walking or standing. Expect all of your body hurts when came home at the end of the day.

• Bring carry case or baggage, in case you prepared for a big haul. Case with 4 wheels is the most recommended since there will be a lot of people there, carrying 2 wheeled carry case will just make other people angry because you and your baggage takes a lot of space when walking. 

• Compact phone charger, always. You will be taking pictures like mad, and dear sweety phone battery will be easily dropped. Not to mention if you were separated from you friend too!!

The event itself actually were 2 days, but I can only visit on the first day because of my work the next day, so I was focusing myself on buying things at that time. I didn't see that much nail art demo (cry) which I’m curious about.  And I didn't take much photos too since my hand were too full of my shopping bag. 

In my opinion, it will be just right i u can visit both 2 days in a row. Especially in the final days. All the climax were there; the ultimate nail art technique were introduced, several actress as nail models came out, and super sale for several booth to clear their stock. Too bad I couldn't go at that time.

So now I’m waiting for another expo next spring. Since this is the first nail expo a.k.a a beauty event that I have visited, I’m really curious about how the next event will turn out to be!!

Nails 101

Hi guys, always wondering why some people can have like, the most beautiful smooth polished nails like this?

Or this?

Or this?

Actually, don’t look at the last picture, this is definitely nail art, you have to have the skills of nail art or if you lazy just go to saloon for nail art pedicure manicure. And ignoring the photoshop effect and perfect lighting and camera, you can have this smooth polished nails too!

Howeva! Some of you people always wondering how to polish your nail smoothly without texturize your nails. Actually, the BIGGEST SECRET *which so far I know is…

 THE WAY YOU PAINT YOUR NAILS WITH POLISH.

Which I mean the way is REALLY the way your brush polish swiped.

Although I’d like to just formally inform you all that the right way to polish your nails is basically contains of some parts you have to have to do

1. Apply base coat
2. Apply the color you want
3. Apply the color you want. Again. I did this to emphasize that twice layering is important to make the smooth look.
4. Apply the top coat.

No doubt with 4 steps followed + THE RIGHT WAY TO SWIPE THE POLISH BRUSH will definitely make the VERY BEST smooth look (looks even better with other nail treatment such as routine mani and padi, but ah too busy to do it routinely). I, myself, always skip the base and top coat, simply because, I still don’t have base coat, and am too lazy to use the top coat and waiting another minutes to wait for it to dry.

From which I know, most of you *unfortunately, and shockingly* paint your nails like this,

 Or this,

Or even this,

----------------------------------

The way number 2 and 3 definitely wrong, absolutely. You’ll get nails as smooth as dirt road like that. Leave that waaaay!

But number 1 seems right? Yes that way is right, but not EXCELLENT. Remember, we strive for perfection here.

This is the MOST RIGHT way to use your nail polish.

 You see? Only three big one-way swipes per finger, and 2 other if needed (only to smooth over excess liquid)

I’ll show the real one here.

 

 n.b. : really sorry for low quality picture leh, taken from old digital camera and edited this myself in the midnight.remind me to buy new camera.

For addition, you don't expect to see the smoothness in just single layer (like picture number 4). Picture number 4 is not a mess, but it's pretty normal and clean for single layer. You can see the effect after finishing 2nd layer just like picture number 5 above.

See? That was far more easy, and perfect.

However you should pay attention to:

• The amount of liquid in your brush. I’m only give example on a normal size brush and normal nail size here. So, if you have bigger/smaller size of nails/brush, what’s matter is not hoe many times you swiped the brush over your nails (size didn’t change the times you swiped, mostly), but how much liquid amount you swiped with the brush. I bet you all always get rid of excess amount of liquid from your brush at the tip of the polish bottle by swiping it on the bottle tip. But now, you’ll need to use more of your feelings. Bigger nails need more polish. Adjust your amount of liquid in your brush so that’s possible for you to cover your entire nail surface in just 3 clean swipes. Feel the exact perfect amount, baby!

• The time needed to your polish to be completely, I mean, COMPLETELY dry. Somehow people assume it’s dry already when you can touch the nail surface without your finger had the excess liquid. However, my definition of dry, is, when you stick in all your polished-nails like this and scratch them on the opposite sides several times,

You can do it freely without damaging your nails. You see, when you feel that your nails is kinda still sticky if they were stick to each other (softly try to stick them, girl, you’ll feel it), DON’T SCRATCH THEM. It means your polish isn’t as dry as my definition of dry.

This is the most crucial time because most of the people think it is dry enough they touch (or even swipe) the smooth surface with their other fingers and bum! You’ll have fingerprints texture (or even cracked layers). Congratulation on your very dumbness.

Don’t worry sometimes I fuckingly and accidentally do this and “why youuuu~~” to me myself. However I am too lazy lah to start over again.

On my experience, nail polish needs about 45 minutes - 1 hour to be completely dry as my definition of dry. So, find your own perfect time to polish your nail (especially when you have nothing to do in maybe 1-2 hours, that’s the perfect time to do your nails, haha)

So, why read more? Try my perfect little dirty secrets as soon as you can!

****

n.b.: Not so dirty secrets actually.