This is the second nail art tutorial post by a special Middle-earth News guest contributor, @FleurDeGaite. Her first tutorial provided a step-by-step process of applying a Hobbit-themed design based on one of the gorgeous covers of J.R.R. Tolkien’s book. Today, she shares her special designs to get you (and your nails) ready for Tolkien Reading Day!
Hello again! 🙂 This time I will show you some nail art examples in honor of Tolkien Reading Day for you to try.
I chose a random set of symbols that mean a lot to me or are my most favourite. You can do whichever you like best, or also use one symbol or style for all your nails. Do it in every way you like; these are merely some examples and ideas. 🙂
First of all, I will tell you a little trick to make complicated symbols or writing easy as pie!
1. Take a ruler and measure the size of your nails (height/width) and write them down on a little sheet of paper. Mine are about 1 cm high and 0.8 wide, but of course this varies. If you have measured your nails you should know roughly which symbols or writing you want to put on which finger.
2. I used Google to find the pictures I needed and copied them into a Word Document. I cropped them and then put them into the right size, fitting the chosen nail.
3. A collection of these symbols could look like this:
4. When you are happy with all the symbols you chose, print that piece of paper and put it into a sheet protector! Now you can take a thin brush and start painting the symbols onto the sheet protector. A steady hand is advised. 😉 When creating your template, it’s better to leave a bit of space between the symbols, so you won’t destroy one whilst painting another!
5. This time, I used this collection of nail polish, amongst others, as well as this brush:
6. I started out with these two symbols:
The one on the left is Tolkien’s symbol, arranged of his initials (J-R-R-T) and stays for every book he has written, for every minute of joy and entertainment he gave to us all and for all the good friends I found thanks to his work! The right one of course is the banner of Theoden and the Rohirrim, which reminds me of a proud and honorable people, that honor family, as do I.
Painted on the protector it looked like this:
Don’t worry if you aren’t too sure if you painted the lines correctly. Simply pull on the sheet of paper to see how you did and correct if necessary.
To see how the painted symbol would look on your nails, simply hold your finger under the protector and get sort of a preview to how it will look later!
7. The next set of symbols I chose were the key of Thorin Oakenshield and an acorn, symbolizing the friendship between Bilbo and Thorin.
8. Continuing with The Hobbit themed symbols, I went for the sign that Gandalf left on Bilbo’s door, as well as Smaug. I looked up a Smaug as painted on Bilbo’s map, which is a bit more modern than the original one painted by Tolkien. I tried to add an eye, which (as you can see) didn’t turn out too well. I wouldn’t advise you to try with a brush, but maybe try with a toothpick.
I painted Gandalf’s sign in two different versions, one for a dark background, the other for a lighter one, because I hadn’t decided at that point.
9. Last, but not least, I decided to paint the One Ring itself:
I tried to leave out bits here and there (where the inscription would be) to fill it up with a copper nail polish. As said before, you don’t have to do it that way, you can also go for a simple gold, which is probably easier when you’re doing your first nail art.
In my version, it ended up like this:
When I finished the filling-up, I realized that I painted too much on the upper, right section of the Ring, so I decided it had to become smaller. Before painting everything again, try to repair it: You can use different things for this, like a toothpick or the end of your brush. Thanks to the shape of mine, it’s perfect for cutting edges or trimming the sides:
When you are happy with all your symbols and paintings, we can go on to the next step!
10. Take a clear nail polish, like a top coat or just a transparent one you like, and take as much of it as you can. Use it to put a good amount of it over your little symbols – they have to be covered very well and also have sort of a frame, so you can pick them up later!
I started covering up the acorn, which looked like this:
11. Cover up all your symbols and let this dry on a straight surface. A few words of advice when doing this:
• Try to cover the symbols in one or two strokes of your brush/the nail polish brush – if you paint over it too often, the dryed-up nail polish will soften again and get blurry.
• Don’t let the clear polish dry for too long – something I learned whilst doing this tutorial – maximum an hour! If you carefully touch the clear nail polish and your fingerprint aren’t visible on the surface, it’s perfect. If it dries too long it gets dry and hard and makes thing so much harder afterwords.
12. While waiting, you can paint your nails in the colours you want as background for your symbols. Use whatever colours you like, just make sure to know which finger will bear which symbol.
13. When the clear nail polish is dried, you carefully peel your symbol off the protector – bend the protector for easier access or use some tweezers – and lay them onto the right position on your painted and dried nails. Press on the top carefully to apply your self-made “sticker“ and make sure that you don’t get any wrinkles or holes.
I started with the Tolkien symbol, using a white-glimmer nail polish as background:
As you can see here, I measured a bit wrong and the symbol ended up a bit too big for my actual nail, which can happen! Take your time trying the right size!
14. Do the same thing with the other symbols and arrange them in whatever order you like! One I like best is the flag of the Rohirrim, which is always a bit tricky because of the fine lines. If you are not satisfied with the finished image on your nail cause it’s too light or the colour isn’t right, try to paint over it. Once it’s on your nail you can easily repaint some lines or add something you missed before. If you like what you see, seal everything with another layer of top coat and let it dry for a good while!
15. Now I’ll show you two other paintings that are done rather quickly and look really amazing!
When thinking about Friendship, one has to think of the elvish word for friend eventually. We all know of course that “Friend” means “Mellon” and we also know what this powerful word can do… Open the gate of Moria, of course! And that is exactly what we will do next!
I started out by painting my nail – I usually use the thumb cause there’s more space – black and let that dry. After that I painted two white vertical lines on each side.
Next, I painted a semi-circle on top of this, combining the two.
Continuing with a light blue, I added another two vertical lines, thinner and smaller than the first ones, right next to them. They should have about half the height of their bigger brothers. It should look a bit like this:
Next we’ll attempt to add the branches of the trees, embracing the pillars on each side, by adding two small curves on top of the light blue lines, going upwards.
(I have to apologize again for the threads of the blue nail polish – this usually happens when the nail polish is old or got too warm during the process and shouldn’t happen with newer polishes. If this happens to you, add a small amount of nail polish remover and mix it, the polish will get more liquid and easier to handle, at least for a while!)
Now you can go as much into detail as you like and are able to – I used simple dots to refer to the anvil between the pillars and the seven stars under the arch, as well as the inscription on it. When finished, it looked like this:
16. Finally I tried to paint a Hobbit hole, maybe even Bag End itself, which didn’t turn out as well as I would have liked it to, but since you are all very experienced nail artists by now, I am sure yours will turn out beautifully!
I used a light background to have all possibilities when choosing the colours and started with the round, green door of a hobbit hole. Choose which ever colours you like. You can also go for yellow or red doors, whatever you like best!
I used a crack polish, which opens up when it dries, coloured green – this is why there is a small dot standing out in the middle, which actually helped me placing the doorknob! Then I added two round, big dots in light blue for the windows and later used a nice brown for the door and window frames:
Then I added a lighter brown as the colour of the well:
Finally I painted a golden doorknob and added some grass in light green on the bottom:
Voila! You’re own, personal Hobbit hole! 🙂
I hope I could give you some nice ideas with this tutorial and hopefully it’s not too complicated or random! I want to give a big shoutout to my friends @MiddleEarthNews who gave me the opportunity to share all of this with you guys, it’s a pleasure working with you!
If you try some of these designs or create some nail art for Tolkien Reading Day, please feel free to send me a picture of it. I would love to see your effort and ideas on the topic!
For any further questions you can find me on Twitter under the username @FleurDeGaite.
Thanks for reading, have a great day and enjoy Tolkien Reading Day!
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