Deadpool Nails (With Pictorial)

Hello friends! It sure has been a long time since I last posted a full blog post with a pictorial! I've been wanting to do this design for a while now, and after watching the movie with my boyfriend last week (finally), I decided that this would be an appropriate time to do it.  I took a more detailed approach with this design, and I am extremely proud of how this turned out! At first I was afraid of completely messing the design up, but I'm glad I tried and the outcome was better than I expected.

I've been quite busy with school lately, and since I need to type so much I've been keeping my nails short to keep typing comfortable. Some people still may consider my nails to be quite long, but believe it or not, this is pretty much the shortest that my nails can be! I have extremely long hyponychium under most of my nails and cutting very close to them will cause me pain so this is my optimal length. I also decided to try a new nail shape this week, it's a more hexagonal shape & also extremely sharp around the edges. I thought it'd be a fun thing to try. Plus, I've seen similar shapes on other nail artists around the web/social media and I've had quite a lot of nail envy. Some of my edges aren't as straight as I'd want them to be, and the angles are a little bit off but I think this shape suits me quite well. I wonder what the up-keep will be like...

Keep reading to get a step-by step pictorial on how to create this design:

• Start off with a good base coat on all of your nails and then paint all of your nails an opaque red colour (I used NYC's Madison Avenue) except your middle fingers, which you should paint an opaque white (I used NYC's French White Tip. I chose to use my middle fingers as my accent fingers because it seemed the most appropriate one for Mr. Deadpool
•  Prepare something to mix your paints on. I usually use a tiny square of tin foil or my peel-a-palette. I used water based acrylic paint (the ones you use for crafts) to do this design because they're much easier to work with in comparison to nail polish. You will need red, white and black paint.
• Also prepare some very thin paint brushes, You will need small brushes to make this detailed. I used two brushes, one 10/0 round brush, and another one of an unknown size but is thinner than my 10/0.

• Find a reference picture of deadpool (this will come in very handy)... I used this one
• Using your red paint, create a "silhouette" shape that includes Deadpool's head, neck, shoulders and part of his chest; or create on relative to how much you can fit on your nails. The first layer of acrylic paint may be patchy and not adhere very well to the polish, but that is okay.
  
• Mix some dark red paint and some light red paint and shade Deadpool's head as shouwn above
• Mix some in-between shades and blend some of the colours together
• To make the colours look more blended, I put a very thin layer of the (original, unmixed) red paint over the entire head. This may also tone down the black and white paint and make them more red.

• Shade the head (where the seams of his mask are) using some very light coloured paint that's been diluted with water
• Add the black patches of his eyes on. To give his face more dimension, shade his eye patches (?) using some dark grey paint. After this is done, add his eyes (I made him smiley eyes)

• Shade under Deadpool's neck and also his chest. Add the black design under his neck, and then add his shoulder strap.

• Shade the shoulder strap using some dark grey and some light grey paint
• Add his back shoulder patches and shade them with some dark grey paint

• Add some additional detailing highlights using white paint on the black parts of his suit
• Add the seam detail into his suit using a dark red paint, and highlight some parts with white paint to make it stand out too.

a look at my left hand (Cinderella hand)

• Add hsi swords in using black paint
• Fix areas around the head (where your hand may had slipped) with some white paint & you're done!
• For the rest of the fingers, create a solid black line horizontall across the middle of the nail.
• For my thumb, I did a very minimalist Deadpool mask design.
• Finish your design with a good top coat, and you're done!