Exploding Tardis manicure!

So, on Friday, I decided I'd distract myself from my shocking lack of mojo by playing around with some nail polish.

I've been considering a sort of Whovian theme for a long time -- I hadn't precisely acquired all my blues expressly because I thought they'd be good for a Tardis, but ... well, I'd be lying if I said that wasn't a factor at all.

So! My exploding Tardis manicure.

Now, in fairness to myself, I should note that I had not decided to start a blog when I did this thing. So I a) didn't do sensible things like, you know, take the polish off my cuticles before taking the pictures or b) take careful notes about what I was doing as I was doing it. But here's the rough idea.

First off is the basecoat, followed by two coats of dark blue (I am in love with Nuance “True Azul” from the Salma Hayek line). Wait til it’s totally dry (I sped things up with Sally Hansen Insta-dri topcoat).

Douse a cotton ball in polish remover (I used pure acetone) and keep it handy for cleaning the brush. Get your reference photos handy.

Using a teeny tiny paintbrush, I did the outline of the two main parts of the Tardis in a paler blue (I used Sally Hansen’s Pacific Blue). I just outlined the areas where the windows were going to be -- I wanted the white against the darker blue.

Using white (I went for NYC because, you know, cheap), I did dots for the windows, outlined the roof, and did the light at the top. Then kinda went crazy with the explosion in the middle. When the white dried, I overpainted it with streaks of gold glitter (I used OPI Goldeneye), glittery and shimmery oranges (because I had Zoya Rica and Gwin on hand -- in retrospect, I think Rica was too red/pink), and touches of silver (Sally Hansen Gilty Party). If I’d had an awesome golden yellow it would have improved things, but I was working from my stash -- for me, the experience of doing crazy things is improved immeasurably by doing them with only what I have on hand. Why yes, I just happened to have all these crazy colors lying around; why wouldn't I?

For the swoops and swirls on the other fingers, I did them in white first then overpainted with gold glitter, not being too careful about getting them spot-on -- I like the halo effect. On a couple nails I just did gradients of gold glitter either up from the cuticle or down from the tip, just using the brush from the polish bottle. When it was all dry, I added some silver and orange highlights to the swoops, too. (On my right hand I only did two nails with glitter over the blue, and the one swoop on the thumb -- painting with your non-dominant hand is hard, yo!)

(photographing with your non-dominant hand is also hard. something to work on.)

And so that's how it went. Project number one in Operation: Stop Sulking and Make Shit is a go! (And hell, I made the front page of the Cheezburger fandom site, so -- win!)