Pokémon faces nails tutorial

Today's tutorial includes three designs! They're all inspired by different Pokémon faces, because even if I'm showing you different Pokémon, what I'm truly showing you is to simplify cartoon faces to be able to do them in smaller steps. As per my nail polish collection, I require to play with green designs, and per my personal biases, I'm into grass type. I know it's weird I create more Fakemon from other types, don't worry about it:

 

We're going to be working on these three designs: Smoliv, Rowlet and Cradily, my favourite Pokémon ever that I truly needed to play around. These nails are not top coated, so some of the textures that you see would feel different under the glossy finish. In this tutorial, as I said, we're going to be analyzing how to simplify these cartoon faces to get, even if not the most accurate depictions, something that can be identified as such! You'll only need a brush and if you're more comfortable with it, a dotting tool!

I'll start with Smoliv: It is a small olive with a shaky face and an olive on top, with leaves between its main body and the one on top. Time to show the polishes:

I've used two different olive greens, one more yellow than the other, to accomodate for Smoliv's original palette, even though they're not full colour accurate. It's more about making al the shades making sense together and making them look intentional:

• Revlon Colorstay Gel Envy's 220 In the money
• Holo Taco's Modest Moss
• Holo Taco's Not Pressed
• Holo Taco's One Coat Black
• Holo Taco's Not Milky White

 I started with a base of the greener of the two olives, In the money, as the main colour of the design:

 

Then, we're gonna map where the leaves and top olive will be. They're not the most prominent part of the design, so you can go with one of two routes: either painting sloppily the lunula area with the other olive and then paint on top the leaves, or paint the leaves and then cleaning up the top with the olive. I would personally recommend the second one, but I went with the former:

 

I made more sure that the bottom part was done properly, including the little stem Smoliv has dripping onto its face, and went a bit looser on the top, as I knew I was going to paint the other tone after leaving it for a bit to dry and not transfer:

 This already reads like the shape it should have, contained in the borders of a nail. Now, we should paint the face. Smoliv's face is really simple. It only has two round black eyes with white smaller dots in the middle. The mouth is also quite simple, as is a zigzag line. I personally used a dotting tool for these steps, making sure my center point in my mouth was in the center and then going to one side first, then the other:

 

Leave time to dry, or else, the white is not gonna apply as smoothly and will mess up the bottom layer, it kind of happened to me:

 

And always remember: let ample time for nail art like this, specially implying dots of polish like the eyes and shades like black, to dry before applying top coat, unless you're into smearing all your effort!

The second example I will show you is Rowlet, that adorable owl that's Alola's starter. I figured I needed a big recognisable one to drive my point home, so I made it holographic, too. I used:

 

I don't have a full on beige, but this shade is close enough so I can trick your eyes with relative colours to make it look more brown than it is:

• Holo Taco's Fifty Shades of Greige
• Holo Taco's Featured Guest
• Holo Taco's Green Taffy
• Holo Taco's Electrostatic 

Please don't comment on the situation of my Green Taffy's bottle. I know. I have a back up. I want to use all this polish even though probably I messed up the formula already, as I have thinned it out a couple of times when it was gloopy and now it's less opaque and holographic. Oops. Also related but unrelated, Cristine, I understand if you don't want to bring back Full Charge, but please send me one or two bottles, my Full Charge is in a similar situation and I love that polish to death, thanks.

Back to the nail art, I've started with Fifty Shades of Greige as my base:

Now, I will paint the white parts to outline the shapes. Rowlet has a white bottom, a bit staggered, playing around with the brown feathers that are on top. It also has two big circles touching each other, I don't know how else to describe it aside from Venn diagram:

 I didn't mind too much the scallops at the bottom not being symmetrical, as my next step is using my green to do the leaf bowtie. I mark my center point and then a line to one side, which I round on top and bottom. Repeat the same step for the other side!

Now it's time to focus on its face, the body is already in good shape: For the eyes, they're almost the same as Smoliv's but more elyptical, so I just will proceed the same but dragging my tool a bit. The beak is half white, half orange, so I'll use brown too because I don't have orange. I place just a dot in the lower part:

And the last step is to add the white to the eyes, and a small line on top of that beak, with a super small dot on top to mimic Rowlet's shape. It's very fine detailing, and I am not good at it, nor have the best brushes for it, so it's not perfect, but it's enough.

 

I think that you can tell what the vibe is by just looking at it. I didn't top coat it for this photos, so it's not showing the whole properties of holo, and it's showing a bit of the layers, but again, wait for a bit or your Rowlet will be sad.

The last tutorial is for a pokémon that if it has no fanbase, that means I'm dead. Because I'm its only fan. Cradily!

As a treat to myself, and because I also lack yellows in my collection, I decided to do it in full on frosted metals, so this is not the most accessible look, as all three polishes are discontinued and were limited edition or seasonal, anyways:

• Holo Taco's Foiled Again
• Holo Taco's Blacklisted
• Holo Taco's Frozen Benanas

You may notice that my Frozen Benanas is tarnished, and it's not a light, cool toned yellow anymore. It paints the same, but the shade right now it's more of a true gold, leaning more into the antique. I'm absolutely NOT mad about it. My Foiled Again may also be starting the process, as I can see the flakes on top being way more turquoise and the liquid getting into a mossy green territory instead of a forest green? But I am not sure. I love the formula, but it's not the best at colour accuracy, honestly. 

I start with the green as the base:

 

I will only recreate the face, so no tentacles, no body, so I basically divide my nail to accomodate for the slit where the eyes reside and the markings on the head. That's why I place my black stripe in the lower half of the nail, to accomodate for that. I'm making it a bit curved, and thick enough to accomodate the yellow dots making the eyes:

 

The eyes will go on each side after leaving it time to dry for a bit. For the markings on top, it's two circles on each side, and then a stripe that's concentrical to them. I made my best to not make them touch but due to the size of the nail, I didn't fully accomplish that. It least, it conveys the point across:

 

With these three examples I am trying to teach you how to make any cartoon creature by just following these two principles: simplify the shapes to something achievable, and layer things in the way that's easier for you to draw. Also don't worry too much about the perfect shades, just make them close enough, and have fun! These nails were done on stream, alongside another one that was requested by chat, so if you want to get more footage on how to, with maybe more snippets of knowledge, the VOD is on my youtube channel:

Thanks for reading this, and if you have any kind of suggestion, please do let me know! I will probably post something simpler next week to give myself some grace!