Monday, May 25, 2015

Bad Blood

I just can't seem to get away from music-inspired designs lately! This week's artist is a little more widely known though, so she and her music will probably be more familiar to you. My muse for this design is none other than Taylor Swift and her newest music video for the song Bad Blood!






Most of my inspiration for this design came directly from one of the song's lyrics - "Band-aids don't fix bullet holes" - which I thought was really clever. It's also such a visual statement that it practically made this design on its own without me really having to think about it.

It was really fun painting the bullet holes, actually, and it's definitely a technique I'd reuse when Halloween roles around!
I used three shades of red for the wounds and, starting with the lightest shade, painted messy semi-circles on either side of each band-aid. The semi-circles got progressively smaller as the polishes got darker, and I finished it off with some black polish at the center. I did the dripping blood the same way, starting with the lightest red and working my way up to black!



I tried to make the middle and ring fingers look like asphalt, and to do this I used my usual texture-technique of watering down some white and dark grey acrylic paint and sponging it on to a light grey base. Once that was dry and top-coated I used a straw to blow some red-polish onto the nails to create a blood-splatter pattern!

Let's also just ignore the fact that I put bloody bullet holes in the supposed-to-be cement. I felt like the nails needed something extra so I added in the bullet holes last minute and it wasn't until I was halfway through editing the pictures that I realized that cement obviously doesn't bleed. Whoops! Oh well, I'm just going to hope that most people don't think about it too hard and just let it go lol.






Would you guys be interested in seeing a video tutorial for this design? Given the response to the teaser photo I posted on Instagram yesterday, I think it might be a good idea, haha!

Hope you're all doing well!

Products Used:
Ciaté - Dangerous Affair
Essie - Blanc
Essie - Grow Stronger Base Coat
Essie - Licorice
Essie - Mink Muffs
Essie - Style Cartel
Essie - Waltz
Joe - Plaster
OPI - My Vampire Is Buff
Sally Hansen - Diamonds and Rubies
Sally Hansen - Eel Skin
Seche Vite - Quick Dry Top Coat
Reeves Acrylic Paints

xo,
Becca.

EDIT (150528):
After a few filming mishaps (i.e. I filmed the entire tutorial using my thumbnail as the canvas only to find out once I was finished filming that all of the footage was fuzzy) I bring you the finished tutorial!
I showed how to paint both the index and the middle finger in the tutorial which covers how to do the Band-Aid, bullet hole, blood splatter, and the texture on the grey nails.
Hope it's helpful and if I missed anything or you want more info on what I did then just leave a comment and I'll try to help as much as I can!



2 comments:

  1. This is amazing! I'm a big fan of the bullet holes. They are so real! :o I think it is funny though that you made holes in the cement. Nevertheless, I only think that because you said it. Otherwise I wouldn't have thought of it! Haha! :) I would also be very interested in a tutorial. I'm thinking of trying it myself for Halloween.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you!! Haha, yes I can't believe I didn't think through where the blood would come from! I'll definitely start working on a tutorial, hopefully I'll have it up within the next few day! :D

      Delete