31 Day Challenge Day 13: Animal Print

Animal Print nails! To me animal print seems one of the best go to ways to do nail art. The classic leopard print can be done in ANY colour scheme and is super easy to stamp or freehand on. Zebra is another awesome animal print that instantly dresses up your nails.

Since I already did leopard print for blue nails here I was trying to think outside the box. Snakeskin? Did that here. Giraffe? Koala bear?! Hedgehogs? Ok so the last two don’t really have prints, but they're still animals. So then I got to thinking that maybe the animal doesn’t have to be real, imaginary creatures are still animals! That is how my dragon scale nails were born.

I’m going to say right off the bat that I love these. They are so cool in real life, but sadly my camera did not want to co-operate so they don’t look quite as cool here as they really are. So please forgive me : )

When I was thinking about what colour my dragon would be I immediately thought of one of the last great dragons of Middle-Earth, Smaug, from The Hobbit. This dragon is red and has an orange glow to him.

image source: http://www.donatoart.com/middleearth/smaug.html

I started off with one coat of China Glaze Adventure Red-y and then working one nail at a time while it was still wet I took a dotting tool and drew my scales into the polish. You have to work pretty quickly to get all the scales on your nail before the polish dries. Then I grabbed a sponge and piCture pOlish Demeter which I got from the lovely Katie of Harlow &Co., and sponged on randomly to give it a little burnt sparkle. Then I added China Glaze Riveting with a small nail art brush to the tips and in various scales.

Sorry about some of the weird angles, it was hard to get the scales to really show up! Not sure why this design was being so unfriendly with my camera. Ah well! I hope you get an idea of how awesome these were!

Do you think that I captured dragons scales in my animal print nails?! What is your favourite kind of animal print to do?

Head over to The Lacquerologist to see what animal print Emily has done today!

13 down, 18 to go. See you back here for flowers tomorrow : )