Elliott Smith Nail Art

This is a tutorial for my nail art based on the album artwork for Figure 8, an album by one of my favourite musicians Elliott Smith. I used a red polish for my nails with one accent nail, I had to simplify the design a little but I think it's close enough :)


1)

For this design you'll need a white, red and black nail polish. The red and white I used are from a nail art set I got from ebay, and the black is MUA from superdrug (I didn't use any special brushes for this). 


2)

First, paint your accent nail white and all the rest red. I prefer to use two thin coats rather than one thick layer as it seems to dry better and look more even. 


3)

Next paint two black diagonal lines across the very top of your accent nail; on the album artwork for Figure  8 the lines are not the same width all the way along so these do not need to be perfect! 


4)

Now add the red line; an irregular loop shape that goes from the top corner to the middle, then loops round and ends on the same side it started. I did this in 3 parts; firstly drawing a diagonal line downwards from the top left, then the curve, and then the line back to the left side.


5)

This image shows the final two steps: First I added to the second diagonal black line, adding a curve round from the right to left, following the general shape of the red line. Secondly I added an oval loop inside the red line to complete the design.  The real album art has two black lines inside, but my nail was too small so I decided that it'd look better with just the one rather than making it too crowded.




And this is the finished design :)