20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

This manicure features one of my new Sonoma Nail Art polishes called 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It is inspired by a wonderful event we have had here in Santa Rosa for the past 4 years (it will not be happening this year, but hopefully next year) called the Great Handcar Regatta. It's a super fun steampunk themed event with entertainment, food, shopping, demonstrations, and amazing handcars that race each other in heats on the railroad tracks all day long. The costumes at this event are AMAZING. This polish is inspired by the Jules Vern novel that really seems to epitomize the steampunk aesthetic.

I made a fun/creepy octopus slinking along the ocean floor with splashes of sparkly water all around him. Captain Nemo would kill these nails, like literally. 

This is a new polish (new to me) that I picked up at Rite Aid yesterday. Color Club Age of Aquarius. I had to do some extreme color correcting to this photo and it is still not quite right. This is such a gorgeous shade, but really hard to photograph!

I started with the octo-body on my ring finger, then added tentacles on the middle finger, and finally on the pinkie finger. All of the artwork here is done with acrylic paints, which I find SO much easier to work with than nail polish when it comes to nail art. Check out my FAQ section to see more about the tools I use.

Next I continued shading and added his evil eyeballs. I used a bit of neon green acrylic paint to really make certain parts stand out. Once you topcoat your design, somethings will fade a bit and blend together, so it is best to try to add a lot of depth in the highlights and the shadows. 

Finally I added little dots to suggest his suckers (eek, I am creeping myself out!) and dabbed on my sparkle polish to indicate water splashing and swirling here and there. I like how the sparkle polish continues to tell the story in this manicure with the different shades of blue and green and the occasional white hexagon (my hint at bubbles in the water).

On my right hand I painted a few bubbles using white acrylic paint, and surrounded it with more of my polish, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I want to give a shout out to two amazing nail artists who helped to inspire this manicure. Attacked Astoria made an AMAZING Kraken manicure that I wish I could do. Her talent is incredible and you need to follow her blog for sure! And I absolutely love this mani done by Fez Baker. She is an incredible graphic artist in her own right, and these creepy octopus nails are the bomb.

This is as close to the actual color of Age of Aquarius that I was able to get. It is really vibrant and I love how glowy it is with this lil sea monster. :-)

And here is my baby: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I am selling this polish and some others this evening through my etsy store online. I will replenish stock of my polishes again in June (hopefully earlier if I can get more polish base). If you like this polish, I really hope you are able to get it during my sale today! If not, don't fear, I will make lots more. :-)