Saturday, 31 August 2013

Don't Panic

...and carry a towel.
Hi! I'm super excited about this post. Another week, another Nail Art Ideas Linkup theme, this time it's A Great Read. It wasn't hard to choose a book as I needed something internationally known, easy to picture and most importantly something I love reading. I chose The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy written by Douglas Adams. I read all 6 books, some of them twice, and I had such a great time reading them. To the manicure!


It's pretty obvious what I was going for and yea, maybe I did make this an excuse to try proper galaxy nails for the first time. Thumb says 42, which, for those who don't know the story, is an Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Sadly, the question itself is unknown.


What you can see are acrylics on base of Rimmel 500 Peppermint with two coats of NYC Turbo Dry Top Coat on top. At first, I tried to do the galaxy effect with a sponge, but I didn't like the outcome, so I switched to kind of watercolour technique (used in Outlined Galaxy), when you cover your nail with water and then you add colours to the water, they blend and look cool. Sometimes really cool, look at the epic ring finger!

epic colour blending, click to enlarge
Now I'm getting to what I'm so excited about. I got little carried away after I searched google for some inspiration. You see, the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is also (quoting wikipedia) the name of a fictional, eccentric, electronic travel guide in the series. The Guide is described as resembling "a small, thin, flexible lap computer" encased in a "sturdy plastic cover" with the words "Don't Panic" inscribed on it "in large, friendly letters". There is another thing typical for The Guide series besides Don't Panic statement and that's a towel:
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy states that a towel is the most important item a hitchhiker can have. It describes the towel as a multipurpose tool which can be converted into such things as a sail for a makeshift raft, a gas mask, a blindfold and a weapon for hand-to-hand combat.
You can find a modified version of "Keep Calm and Carry On" on the internet based on these two things and I decided to do my own version using these nails.


You can say I really like editing pictures :D. No more writing today.


I hope I didn't bore you stiff with all the text. Do you know the series and did you read them? I'd love to know! (Also how do you like my interpretation + the keep calm thing?)
I guess today I should wish you have a good time reading books (and blogs)? Yeah, something like that. Cheers.

14 comments:

  1. Love these nails! I've never read the series! I don't know too much about it, but I've heard of it. :)

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    1. Thank you :) well, at least you heard of it :D

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  2. These nails are amazing, and I love the twist on keep calm!

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    1. you do? thanks! I was starting to worry, that I should stop myself from getting carried away like this :D

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  3. Great manicure! I love galaxy nails :)

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    1. Thank you! I didn't know until recently, but after I did these, I think I love galaxy too :D

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  4. I love Hitchhiker's..! I've read them all a few times but I think it's 5 years or so since I did it.. I should do it again :P I have them all in one handy volume ;9 Well, not so handy as it's quite huge.. I did Hitchhiker's nails at some point to, but yours is much more neat!

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  5. What do you mean by covering the nail in water? Do you put water droplets on it or do you submerge your nails in a bowl of water while you paint them? Also what color paints did you use? I love this design and I want to replicate them as accurately as possible:)

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  6. I mean that I dip the brush in water and put the water on the nail (I guess that's what you meant by water droplets), so it's covered in it, I don't submerge my fingers in water at any point (well, just when I want to remove the paint entirely). It's acrylic paint, I used two shades of blue (pthalo and ultramarine), "crimson" red, white and black
    I made a tutorial for this technique: http://nailuminium.blogspot.com/2013/10/outlined-marble-tutorial.html
    the design is different, but the process is the same - you just change colours
    I hope this answers your question and thank you! :)

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  7. Thanks! this helped a lot:)

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  8. Haha, geek attack! Love it so much!

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Your comments always cheer me up so much! So don’t hesitate to share your thoughts on nail art, the post or to ask any questions.