The Power of Music

Hey guys!
Today's design is inspired by the teasers leading up to the release of EXO's 4th repackage album The War: The Power of Music!

I seem to be getting into the habit of painting designs inspired by exo's teasers. I didn't really plan it that way, but SM just keeps drawing me in with cool concepts even before the music videos are released. When I saw the teasers for the comeback I couldn't pass up painting a basically ready-made design; the 8 power orbs fit perfectly on my nails and then the only planning I really had to do was in figuring out how to lay out the text over two thumbs.

Even though this design had been in my head since the first teasers came out, I almost wasn't able to paint it. About a week before I was set to paint this design I completely snapped off one of the nails on my Cinderella Hand while I was at work. I'm not usually overly concerned about breaking nails on my right hand since I don't photograph it, but the timing for this break was awful. I didn't actually realize that it would be a problem until I was sitting down to paint and it hit me that that nail was a different shape (I'd filed it to be rounded since it was so short). After some deliberation I decided to go ahead with the design anyways and quickly filed the nail into a mini-claw so that it matched the other nails as much as possible. I don't think it was very noticeable in the final design so I'm pretty happy about that, and it also shows that this design would also work for all you short-nailed folk out there!

This is the first design I've painted in a while that actually uses all 10 of my nails! Back when I first started painting music-video-inspired designs I always used to paint different designs on all 10 nails, (check out my Dream Girl inspired nails from way back in 2013 - they were the first set of kpop nails I ever did!), but lately I've cut down and only use one hand for my designs. It was kind of nice to revisit that style and remind myself that I am actually still capable of painting semi-intricate designs with my non-dominant hand.

As always, I also filmed a tutorial for this design! The video shows you how to recreate all of the nails in this design plus one special bonus design for xingmis!
Please remember to always credit me if you're resposting my tutorial anywhere or if you're recreating the design for yourself! The tag I follow is #looknyanails, so if you want to show me your recreations please use that hashtag on Instagram or Tumblr!

Products Used:
China Glaze - Designer Satin
CND - Clear Top Coat
Essie - Find Me an Oasis
Essie - Grow Stronger Base Coat
Essie - I'm Addicted
Essie - Licorice
Essie - Make Some Noise
Essie - Vibrant Vibes
Maybelline - Fierce N Tangy
Quo by Orly - Hop Skip and a Jump
Sally Hansen - White On
Serendipity Polish - Big Red Bow 
Serendipity Polish - Pink Poinsettia 

xo,
Becca.