Doctor Who Inspired Manicure!

This manicure is one I did WAY back in August, specifically for the premiere of series 8 of Doctor Who! That was a very big day for us whovians since that was the first time we would see the new Doctor in action! So, to get myself excited for the twelfth Doctor, of course I painted my nails!

Polishes used:

Thumb and pinky: full list can be found here (I used pieces of holo hex glitter for the stars instead of white dots, which I fished out of Techno by China Glaze)

Index: OPI My Vampire Is Buff (off white crème)

Wet n Wild Wild Shine Black Crème (black crème)

Middle: China Glaze First Mate (navy blue crème)

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On (white crème)

Wet n' Wild Black Crème

Ring: Wet n' Wild Black Crème

Essie Penny Talk (metallic copper)

Essie Good As Gold (metallic gold)

I started off by painting my nails with each base color I was using (in order from thumb to pinky: Smoke And Ashes by China Glaze, My Vampire Is Buff, First Mate, Black Crème, and Smoke And Ashes). 

I'm pretty sure I did the galaxies first, since those take the longest. I explain how I do my galaxies here. I really do prefer the look of the galaxies with pieces of holo hex glitter as opposed to white dots.

For the Silence inspired nails, I remember I had to use three coats of MVIB for it to reach full opacity. Then I took a really thin nail art brush (that I trimmed myself) and painted a bunch of messy looking tally marks. I wanted it to look messy and random since that's how River, Rory, Amy and the Doctor wrote them down on their bodies in the show. I remember I actually didn't look at my nail when I was painting these, just so they could look as authentic as possible.

The TARDIS nail was actually super easy. I painted two coats of FM and waited for that to dry. First I took a black striper and made a stripe right down the middle. Then I took a thinner nail art brush and painted white rectangles on either side of the stripe down at the base of my nail. I took an even thinner nail art brush and painted six more rectangles (three on each side) coming down from the white ones. Then I painted a smaller square inside the first black rectangle on the left side for the "Pull To Open" sign, and made a white dot with a small dotting tool inside the rectangle on the other side for the Saint John Ambulance symbol. To finish the windows, I painted three lines on each white rectangle with FM: two going down and one going across. I straightened out any lines I needed to with a nail art brush dipped into FM.

I seriously love how these Dalek nails turned out! I started off with a black base and let that dry completely. While that was drying, I prepared my rhinestones. I don't remember where I got them, but Amazon and Born Pretty Store sell them for pretty cheap. I knew I wanted my Dalek to be copper, so I was originally planning on making their little circle stud thingies copper as well. Then while looking at photos of them, I realized that their studs are a bit lighter than their bodies, so I decided to make them gold instead. I laid out nine yellow rhinestones on a piece of paper and painted over them with my gold polish. It doesn't really matter which color rhinestone you use, but a similar color will mask mistakes or imperfections better. I moved the rhinestones around a bit with the tip of my orange stick so they wouldn't dry in a pool of polish and then get stuck like that. After doing that, I placed three pieces of striping tape down on my nail, making sure they were both evenly spaced apart and far enough down from my cuticle. I painted over all of that with the copper since metallic polishes are usually opaque in one coat. I removed the striping tape immediately after painting the copper to get the cleanest lines. After letting that dry for a bit, I used a cheap top coat, dotted it where I wanted to put the rhinestones, and placed them under the black stripes. Then I took a piece of large blue hex glitter that I got from Borough Babe Supply on Etsy (I don't think she sells this type of glitter anymore though...) and placed it on top of a little blob of top coat for the Dalek's eye.

To finish everything off, I added one coat of Essie Good to Go to each nail.

This is honestly one of my favorite manicures that I've ever done. I always love mix and match manis, and a Doctor Who inspired one just makes it that much better!

Thanks for reading!