Peculiar Polish Series - Moomin

It's another Thursday and time for more Peculiar Polish! Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that are from different cartoons that may be a bit less well known. If you have a suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!
Here's Nev->

Thumb: Moomins logo
Index: Little My
Middle: Moomin
Ring: Sniff
Pinky: Snork-Maiden

When an anonymous person requested these Moomins nails, I have to admit I wasn't very excited. I hadn't heard of the Moomins and, although they seemed cute, I didn't really get it. Well, since then the Moomins have invaded my life! Let me first tell you about the Moomins: they started out as a Swedish book and comic strip that centered around the Moomins (who are a family of trolls). Eventually the empire expanded and since their creation there have been movies, television shows, and even a theme park (!) devoted to the Moomins. Now I'll explain why the Moomins have become so exciting to me: Ron (my fiancee) doesn't usually get so excited about my nail art. Usually (unless I'm doing something Star Wars or Hellboy related) he could probably care less. But when I started researching the Moomins to figure out how I would do my nails, Ron suddenly became obsessed. I was watching a clip of the Moomins on YouTube which had the Moomins theme song. Well, ever since then Ron has been walking around singing a modified version of the theme song. Since he doesn't actually know the lyrics he just goes, "Moomins, Moomins, Moo Moo Moo, Moomins." (If you want to hear him sing it, check out the audio clip at the end of the post). It has been about two weeks and he hasn't stopped. It's endearing and annoying at the same time. Anyways, now that Ron is thoroughly obsessed he brought me home a Moomins related present -- Moomins biscuits! I haven't eaten them yet but they sure look delicious! Here is the requested tutorial: 

Start with a sky blue (I used a light blue Color Club) on your fingers and white (I used  Wet n' Wild's white) on your thumb.

Use black acrylic paint to silhouette the characters. On the thumb make a half circle for the sun and use small strokes to create black sun beams. 

Make each character the correct color while leaving a small black outline. Now is also a good time to add their necks (I don't do it earlier so that I make sure my outlines stay crisp). Also add in the black on Sniff's ears and touch up Snork-Maiden's hair. 

Begin filling in the details. Little My gets orange hair and a lot of facial details while the  others mostly just get eyes and eyebrows. 

Dot in the characters eyes and finish the thumb by adding the Moomins logo at the bottom.  After you finish your nails with some top coat, you're done!

Mmm... Moomins biscuits!

...and here is a clip of Ron singing his version of the Moomins Theme:

  Moomins by Ron Bauerle

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Peculiar Polish Series - Totoro

 It's another Thursday and time for more Peculiar Polish! Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that are from different cartoons that may be a bit less traditional. If you have a suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!
Here's Nev->

"I don't know much about Totoro, but Ron (my fiance) tells me that Totoro is a movie by Hayo Miyazaki where the titular character is a forest spirit who befriends two young girls. Miyazaki is the well respected founded of Studio Ghibli, which is considered to be the best animation studio in Japan and possibly the world.  Totoro became the emblem of their company because of its success. Totoro is to Studio Ghibli as Mickey Mouse is to Disney. It was an honor to paint such an icon on my nails, and I'm thankful and anonymous subscriber suggested these!"

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Peculiar Polish Series - Adventure Time

 It's another Thursday and time for more Peculiar Polish! Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that are from different cartoons that may be a bit less traditional. If you have a suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!
Here's Nev-

These Adventure Time nails were suggested by Paige at Potentially Flawless. Adventure Time is a Cartoon Network show that centers around Finn (ring finger) and his magical dog Jake (middle finger). The super smart Princess Bubblegum (index finger) rides around on Lady Rainicorn (thumb). And in the alternate dimension Lumpy Space Princess (pinky) can convert people into beings like her by biting them. My favorite episode is "From Bad to Worse" which I watched with my friends son. He laughed uproariously as candy zombies started taking over. And in the end, Science saved the day! 

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Peculiar Polish Series - Family Guy

 It's another Thursday and time for more Peculiar Polish! Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that are from different cartoons that may be a bit less traditional. If you have a suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!
Here's Nev-



This request from Brenda has been the nails that I've been most excited about and most anxious about. I love Family Guy, a lot. I've always been a huge Matt Groening fan (The Simpsons), so I remember when Family Guy was coming out how exciting it was to have a new series, from a new creator that seemed to have some of Groening's flair. I wasn't disappointed and I've been a Family Guy fan ever since! I was anxious about doing this nails because I always thought that the characters from family guy are a little more complex than in most cartoons. They don't require tons of shading, but they do have tons of weird details. For example, all characters have eyelids, which I really struggle with apparently.


For my nails I did Peter, Brian, Lois, Stewie and Chris. I tried to make my nails ring true of the series, so like characters on the show often do, I left out Meg. I surrounded Lois with Stewie and Brian because they are often vying for her attention.  On my right hand I did the Family Guy logo. Hope you enjoy these, I know I enjoyed painting them!





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Peculiar Polish Series - Teen Titans

It's another Thursday and time for more Peculiar Polish! Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that are from different cartoons that may be a bit less traditional/popular. If you have a suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!
Here's Nev-
A big thank you to both Brenda and another anonymous reader for suggesting these Teen Titan nails!Teen Titans is a Cartoon Network television show that was based on a comic which centered around teenaged superheros from the DC universe. It is my understanding that it is not only action based, but also pretty character-driven at times. The main protagonist is Robin (of Batman and Robin) and his team consists of Cyborg, (who has a cannon built into his arm), Starfire (who absorbs UV rays to help give her energy in battles), Beast Boy (the trickster of the group), and Raven (who uses meditation and thought to help her combat enemies). 

For my nails, I did the main team of the television show on my left hand. But for my right hand I just did the logo. This is a little trick that I use sometimes when I do a lot of detail work and don't feel like using my non-dominant hand to do intricate stuff. It's a great idea for anyone who is shakier with one of their hands.



Thumb to pinky: Cyborg, Beast Boy, Robin, Starfire, Raven



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Peculiar Polish Series - Invader Zim

It's another Thursday and time for more Peculiar Polish! Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that are from different cartoons that may be a bit less traditional/popular. If you have a suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!

Invader Zim is one of those Nickelodeon shows that has almost developed a cult following so I'm so happy that Brenda (look, Brenda: I did two nails with Gir just for you!!!) and Cula Parker requested it! For those of you who haven't seen it, it is about Zim, and alien who is attempting to destroy the earth. His sidekick, Gir (who often disguises himself as a dog... Though a green zip up costume probably wouldn't fool many people, it always does on the show!) is a perpetually disobedient robot. And Zim's nemesis Dib (and Dib's cynical sister Gaz) is constantly trying to stop Zim's plans. With such an amazing show, and characters with such depth these were really fun nails to do! 

Thumb: Invader Zim
Index: Gaz
Middle: Gir
Ring: Gir in his dog costume
Pinky: Dib

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Peculiar Polish Series - The Last Unicorn

It's another Thursday and time for more Peculiar Polish! Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that are from different cartoons that may be a bit less traditional/popular. If you have a suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!

Leslie's co-worker Nicole suggested these nails based on "The Last Unicorn" an animated fantasy film from 1982. (Adrienne also suggested them via the embedded form a the bottom of the page.) The movie follows the titular unicorn trying to discover what happened to the rest of her species.  It's cast included many well known actors including Jeff Bridges, Mia Farrow, and Angela Landsbury.  It has gone on to achieve a cult following, (which includes my soon-to-be sisters-in-law).  For these nails I took elements from the box cover below.  

Once again, a great job by Nev! Can't wait to see what you do for next week's Peculiar Polish!

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Peculiar Polish Series - Pettersson & Findus

It's another Thursday and time for more Peculiar Polish! (Nev was busy last week and time got ahead of us) Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that are from different cartoons that may be a bit less traditional/popular. If you have a suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!

"Laureen suggested the German cartoon Pettersson and Findus for some nail art. I think this was a totally awesome suggestion because these characters look great on nails! Pettersson, the man, is on my middle finger and the stripes of his shirt are on my pinky. Findus, the adorable cat, is on my ring finger. On my index finger I painted Findus' overalls and tail. I think they look adorable! However, I don't know much about Pettersson and Findus because every single article I can find about them is in German and my Google translator isn't doing its job. So maybe some of you can fill me in on what these two are really about!"

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Peculiar Polish Series - Fafi Girls

It's another Thursday and time for more Peculiar Polish! Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that are from different cartoons that may be a bit less traditional/popular. If you have a suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!

This one took me a while to figure out, but I sure am glad I did! An anonymous person suggested the "Fafi Girls," since I wasn't sure who or what they were, I did some research (have I mentioned how awesome the internet is?!). It turns out the Fafi Girls, or Fafinettes are the creation of the artist FAFI, who began as a street artist and now has collaborations with companies like M.A.C, Adidas, Chanel and more. She is infamous for creating Fafinettes who represent strong, powerful, sexy women. I was surprised at how sexy some of these ladies got and I think there has been some controversy about FAFI's representation of the powerful woman using her sex appeal to get ahead. I decided to keep it PG (really, G) and only paint the faces of the lovely Fafinettes. One distinct feature these ladies have the heart shaped blush on their cheeks. Do you have any opinions about the connection between sex appeal and power?
These are great Nev! My personal favorite is the one with green hair. So cute! I don't know how I feel about using sex appeal to get ahead... I think I'm against it just because of how clueless men can be that fall for it each and every day. Lol.

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Peculiar Polish Series - Death Note

It's another Thursday and time for more Peculiar Polish! Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that are from different cartoons that may be a bit less traditional/popular. If you have a suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!

Death Note nails have got to be the most requested "peculiar" nails that Leslie has ever gotten! The original request came from Sam, who I need to apologize and make a promise to.  Sam asked for a Death Note mani that featured L, Misa, and Ryuk and she asked for a tutorial to go along with it. Well silly me I forgot to read the entire request, so I painted these nails before realizing she wanted a tutorial. I feel awful so, Sam, I promise you that within the next week I will be posting a tutorial for L, Misa, Ryuk and many some other special stuff over at my blog. Others who requested these nails included MISSXMASGIRL who requested them in one of Leslie's comments. Most recently Jeshi asked for Death Note nails and explained that it was a love of her and her friends.




I hope you all enjoy these nails! They really helped me hone my shading skills. 

Left to right: L, Light Yagami, Ryuk, logo

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Peculiar Polish Series- Candy Candy

It's another Thursday and time for more Peculiar Polish! Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that are from different cartoons that may be a bit less traditional. If you have a suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!

Ängeles Díaz sent Leslie a really nice note about the cartoon Candy Candy, which she loved while she was growing up. She is from Spain and said that Candy Candy was very popular there. I, not being from Spain, hadn't ever heard of Candy Candy before so I did a little bit of research. I found out that Candy Candy is a Japanese cartoon that features an American girl who was orphaned. The story follows her trials and tribulations and seems surprisingly optimistic. Candy Candy has been a novel, an anime series, and manga over the years, which is relatively typical for Japanese cartoon, what surprised me though was that her first appearance was in 1975! That means Candy Candy has been around for almost 40 years! I think that's awesome! For my nails I did Candy Candy on my index finger, the distinctive bows that she always wears in her hair, and her pet raccoon Klint. Have you seen Candy Candy before? I watched the opening sequence and it looks like it was a great show!

Klint, bows, and Candy Candy

Close up of Candy Candy


Great job Nev! These are so sweet and girly! You keep proving to be the perfect choice for helping me out with this series. :) -Leslie

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Peculiar Polish Series - She-Ra

It's another Thursday and time for more Peculiar Polish! Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that are from different cartoons that I've not been able to get to. If you have a suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!

Jo from the UK (and Sara) requested these She-Ra nails and I was so excited to do them! I painted these nails about two weeks ago because I couldn't wait to get to them! To my surprise, when I was perusing other nail blogs I happened to notice that Michelle from Sonoma Nail Art posted some She-Ra nails this week! What a crazy coincidence! Hers are amazing and you can see them here. While Michelle went with a pretty straight forward (and beautiful) approach to She-Ra nails, I decided to go a little more complicated.




I can't think of She-Ra without thinking of He-Man so I decided to make this mani a bit of She-Ra and a bit of He-Man. I did portraits of their faces on my index and ring fingers. For my middle and pinky finger I did the print on He-Man's tiger Cringer. On my thumb I decided to do She-Ra's Sword of Protection which gives her the ability to change from Princess Adora into She-Ra.




I finished off the manicure with a matte top coat because whenever I think of cartoons, I think of a more matte appearance. Hope you enjoy and see you next Thursday!

Great job once again Nev! Thanks so much!

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Peculiar Polish Series - X-Men

It's another Thursday and time for more Peculiar Polish! Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that are from different cartoons that I've not been able to get to. If you have a suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!

Here's Nev's Nails!

Giedre requested the X-Men cartoon nails and I have to say, these are some of the hardest nails I've ever done. I don't know what it is with the style of the X-Men, but I can not for the life of my paint them! I tried sooo many times and failed every single time. At the very bottom of this post is a photograph of the failed attempt at the faces of Cyclops (who is the lead of the X-Men and has to wear a visor over his eyes because he has uncontrollable laser vision), Rogue (the southern belle type who absorbs mutant powers by touch and can also kill with her touch. Pretty cool power if you ask me), and Wolverine (who has a metal skeleton and claws. He and Cyclops are like opposites, Wolverine is the bad boy and Cyclops is the goody goody). I painted the X-Men's logo on my thumb and pinky. The X stands for extra, as in their extra abilities. It's also a reference to their mentor, Professor X.

When I couldn't make these nails look cool I decided to do the classic logo, which turned out WAY better. I ended up doing "X-Men" with a slight orange to yellow gradient, blue shadows, and on my thumb I did the Marvel logo (Marvel is the publishing company that made X-Men, Spiderman, Thor, Iron Man, The Hulk). I love how this look turned out! I hope Giedre isn't too disappointed that I kind of failed at these nails, I figure that two sets of nails should make up for my failure!

Thanks for contributing Nev! You did such a great job and I completely understand that about some cartoon styles being nearly impossible to mimic. :)

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Peculiar Polish Series - Ed, Edd, n Eddy

It's another Thursday and time for more Peculiar Polish! Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that are from more obscure cartoons. If you have a suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!

Here's Nev's Nails!

 

Danielle Carbone requested some Ed, Edd n Eddy nails and a tutorial to go along with them! I loved doing these nails. I didn't want to take them off. I just started nail school and I wore these on my first day; everyone was blown away! I hope you enjoy these as much as I did!

I painted Ed on my index finger, Edd on my middle finger, Eddy on my ring finger, and Plank on my pinky. My friend asked me to do Plank for this manicure, because she claims he is the best character. Plank is the imaginary friend of a neighborhood kid who's friends with The Ed's.

 

Tutorial:

Sorry for the bad pic. In the first step, I just painted my nails a light sky blue. 

I used Color Club's Blue Light.

Paint a silhouette of each character and the show's logo on your thumb.

Add some colors. Ed is slightly yellow. Edd is beige. Eddy is slightly purple. Plank is two tones of brown/yellow. Notice that Ed's top hairline is yellow, not black.

Add on some black details. For Plank use red and blue.

Add in whites and touch up Planks eyes.

Finish off the detailing by adding eyes and teeth.

She did such a stellar job on these! She completely captured their quirky personalities. Thanks Nev!

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Peculiar Polish Series - Zoombinis

It's another Dark Thursday and time for an episode of Peculiar Polish! Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that might be on the darker side of the cartoon/comic spectrum. If you have a dark suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!

Here's Nev's Nails!

An anonymous subscriber requested these Zoombinis nails and I had no idea what that the Zoombinis were! But I'm so happy that I got to do this request because it turns out that The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis is a computer game that teaches kids math! Math nerds pay attention, everyone else zone out: Not only does this game teach kids math, but more specifically it teaches them basic set theory and logic! Set theory is like my favorite part of math ever. 

Anyways, the Zoombinis are these cute little blue guys who get enslaved by the evil Bloats (who promise the Zoombinis a better life, but instead take advantage of them). I am totally ordering a copy of this game and then after I play it, I'm definitely going to force my future children to play!

For my nails, I painted the Zoombinis' adorable faces on my left hand and on my right hand I painted different feet. As you can see, when I put my nails together you get the entire picture!

 Such a cute idea, and Nev did a great job once again! Thanks!

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Peculiar Polish Series - Avatar Tutorial

It's another Dark Thursday and time for an episode of Peculiar Polish! Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that might be on the darker side of the cartoon/comic spectrum. If you have a dark suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!

Here's Nev!

My favorite thing about the Peculiar Polish series is that I'm learning about so many new cartoons that I didn't know much about! Gabby requested Avatar: The Last Airbender nails and a tutorial to go along with it. Avatar was an Asian inspired Nickelodeon series that follows Aang (a bender, who is one who can manipulate the elements) and his friends. On my nails I painted Aang on my middle finger, Katara (a waterbender) on my index finger, Sokka (Katara's brother) on my ring finger, and Momo (the adorable lemur that assists Aang). This is my first ever picture tutorial so I hope it turned okay! It turns out that picture tutorials are hard work! I think everyone needs to applaud Leslie for doing them so often!

First I painted solid base colors. Momo is solid white. Aang is slightly darker than Momo. And Katara is the most tan. I painted the thumb black to add the logo.

Here I added in the hair lines. Aang has a blue arrow tattoo on his forehead. Use Leslie's technique of first making the hair outlines in black, and we'll fill them in with color later.

Add color to the hair, leaving a thin black line for an outline. Also add in lines for eyes and eyebrows. It is okay if they're sloppy, because you'll be adding white to the inside in the next step. Momo needs a cute mouth and nose too.

Fill the eyes in with white. This will leave a thin black line for the outsides of the eyes. Also shade Katara and Sokka's eyebrows.

Add colored dots to the middle of the eyes.

In this step I first put a black dot in the middle of the eye, then off center I added a white dot to give the eyes dimension.

Finally add the logo to the thumb and you're done!

 

I hope you like these nails and I'll see you all next week for a really awesome set of computer game inspired nails!

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Peculiar Polish Series - Tank Girl

It's another Dark Thursday and time for an episode of Peculiar Polish! Nev from Nevorpurify's Nail Art  is helping me out by designing looks that might be on the darker side of the cartoon/comic spectrum. If you have a dark suggestion for her, just fill out the embedded form at the bottom of the page!

Here's Nev!

I'll be the first to admit that I really didn't know very much about Tank Girl before an anonymous person requested these nails. As far as I can tell, Tank Girl is a sexually charged, crime fighting, anarchist who dates a kangaroo named Booga. I know, sounds pretty awesome, right? Since Anon specified that she wanted Tank Girl the comic nails, I figured I would make these black and white.

On my middle finger is the infamous Tank Girl, who, lets be honest, looks a little funny (on my nails, not in the comic). But she does have the telltale features of Tank Girl: A Band-Aid above her right eyebrow, a cross earring, and a mischievous look. My index finger features Booga's ear. I honestly couldn't figure out how to paint him, so I thought I'd use one of Leslie's awesome techniques which is cropping an image to make it work with your nail! I think it looks really awesome for these nails because it kind of implies that the rest of Booga is in between fingers doing something explicit to Tank Girl (that I'm totally not gonna paint, haha). Then I did some checker boards which really represent a lot of the style that the art in Tank Girl exhibits. And of course, the Tank Girl logo!  

I know that nail art isn't really a contest, but if it was, Suemomo Does Nails kicked my butt with her awesome Tank Girl nails that can be seen here.

And here is someone else's drawing of Tank Girl for you to reference.

Nev, thank you so much for collaborating on this series. Look forward to additional Dark Thursdays in the future!

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