31 Day Nail Art Challenge: Inspired by Artwork

Today's post is inspired by the artwork of Charles Batte, also known as Chas Batte. Chas worked for the San Francisco Opera for many years. Now he focuses on his art dolls and figures. These things are AMAZING! I have been lucky enough to meet Chas and I also bought one of his gorgeous little figures at an event called Halloween and Vine, a juried Halloween art show in Sonoma County. Here are the nails I painted inspired by Chas Batte:

It's a little devil dude! And my friend Nev pointed out that the swirls on the other nails are inspired by Robin Moses, another great artist. They sure are! Robin is the guru of nail art. Check her out on YouTube.

Here is the piece that inspired this manicure. It is a magic potion bottle with a removable head! 

I started with a base coat of butter LONDON Knees Up. I lurve this color! This is one coat, and I could have done two coats, but I was too tired to do two. 

I did the outline of the devil first with black acrylic paint. I was worried that this would be harder to do since my model for the art was a sculpture, not a print. I really had to think about shape and shading more than usual. 

Then I added the red and white with more acrylic paint. Letting the paint kind of dry out on my brush made it easier to do the textured finish on his cloak/jacket. 

Here is a closeup of the face. Those eyeballs were a bitch to do. I had to do the left eye about 4 times to get it right. The acrylic paint lets you do that kind of thing. Polish is way less forgiving of mistakes. 

Here is the full mani topcoated. It is pretty cute! I mean EVIL. 

Here is me holding my magic potion bottle. I love this little guy. It is so cool to own a piece of Chas Batte's artwork! Support artists! Buy their work!

Here is the little devil without his head. You put the magic potion inside his little body and his neck fits nicely back into his collar. (Of course, this is too precious to me to fill with ACTUAL magic potion, so I just pretend.)

Polishes used in this manicure: Cult Nails Get It On basecoat, butter LONDON Knees Up, and Seche Vite topcoat. 

Check out Chas Batte! He's incredible! Check out Robin Moses, she is incredible too! 

Tomorrow: Nails inspired by a Flag. :-)

31 Day Nail Art Challenge: Blue Nails

Today's design is inspired by one of my favorite artists (I have lots of favorite artists, which is fun): Kipling West. Kipling is so in love with Halloween. She is more in love with Halloween than you and I will ever be. I think the only person on the planet who may love Halloween more than Kipling West, is maybe Tim Burton. Maybe. Kipling made the most amazing Tarot Deck on the planet: The Halloween Tarot. Trust me, it is quite an undertaking to do a complete Tarot Deck. I tried one year to do my own, and only made it through the major arcana (22 cards). To do an entire deck of 78 cards is incredible, and to do them around the Halloween theme is even awesomer. And yes, I know that awesomer is not a word, but it is totally appropriate in this case. So without further ado, today's design is based on The Devil card from The Halloween Tarot by Kipling West... tadaaaa!

Yup, it's a Devil in a Blue Dress (blue dress, blue dress, Devil with the blue dress on!)

The base color for this manicure is Big Smoke by butter LONDON. This is one of the colors I picked up at Ulta's Buy One Get One sale last month. I really love it! This photo was the best at capturing the shade correctly, even though my hands look a bit pink in the shot.

I started by using red acrylic paint for her body and tail. I mixed the red paint with some white paint to add highlights to her features. I learned this technique from Robin Moses, who you should totally check out on YouTube. 

Next came more shading as well as her lovely hairdo. I tried to be careful about not getting too close to her face, as Kipling's drawings have a black outline around all of the characters.

I added her arm (gloved in a lovely blue shade) holding her pitchfork, and also her blue dress and highlights to her hair. She's starting to come together in this pic.

Nearly finished! I outlined with black to make most features stand out, and also added facial features and eyes. I really like how she turned out!

Here is the design with topcoat applied. She's just so sexy and fierce. I love it! A very fun mani for blue nails. 

On my right hand I decided to give the Devil with the Blue dress a little sidekick, so I made this Blue Devil Duckie. I love devil rubber duckies. This one turned out really well. And I placed him on my middle finger on purpose. Why would I do that, you ask?

So I can flip you the bird, of course!!!!! Ha ha ha! Get it? It's a duck, which is a bird, and it's on my middle finger... ha ha! Ok, maybe that is really silly, but I loved showing this manicure off at work, and then flipping all of my coworkers off. I even gave my boss the bird! LOL

You can see the model of Kipling West's Devil Card from The Halloween Tarot in the background of this shot. If you want to see more of The Halloween Tarot, check it out on Amazon here: The Halloween Tarot Deck & Book Set: 78-Card Deck [With Book]. If you want to see more of Kipling's work (which I recommend), follow her blog: Four Eyed Bat.

Polishes I used in this mani: butter LONDON Big Smoke, Essie All in One Basecoat, and Seche Vite topcoat.

Tomorrow will be violet nails. I'll bet you are wondering what I will do for violet Halloween nails, huh? Come back tomorrow to find out!