Old Tombstone nails tutorial

 It's October, I'm in a new computer because my old one broke down on me, and I'm going to show you how to mourn losses in your life but in a very slay way: make their tombstones on your nails!

It's quite easy to make, we're using very basic nail art techniques that we have discussed extensively. For this, I used these three polishes:

They're all from my local grocery shop's beauty line, feel free to substitute with any brand you like, obviously. I'm showing these as examples:

• Deliplus' 88
• Deliplus' 68
• Deliplus' Gel Effect Nº107

Or, what I call them: a grey for the stone, a green for the moss and because it's literally me, and black for the lines. That black has a very very slight shimmer that basically disappears on the nail so yeah, I use it as plain black.

First off, paint your nails grey. I required two thin coats to reach the desired opacity, I swear this brand releases great polishes in terms of quality, so I build my collection a lot relying on them:

 

Next up, to give it the old and decrepit look, I decided to use a make up sponge's asymmetrical edge to add some green emulating moss and decay. I used this same technique to emulate a galaxy and sea foam with other colours, and here you can see its versatility. The first dabs with the sponge will be more concentrated so I placed them below on the nail so it can also double up as grass and vegetation crawling up:

 

Now, I used the black and a thin detail brush to write RIP on my nail. Honestly, my brush is old and not really sharp and good, and I need way more practice, but hey. It's frayed at this point and I did what I could. I will suggest starting with the I in the center to mark where the middle point is and then writing the rest. Go slowly, you've got this. And if it doesn't turn out sharp, you can say it's intentional for the eerie vibe! Win win situation, perfect moment to attempt it:

 With the slight rest of the black polish blob I had in my palette (a yoghourt lid, yes, like Simply) I did a couple of cracks around the nail to just bring home the decay, and after this, wait a bit before applying your top coat to avoid smudging. Float it. You'll thank me later. Or, hey, don't and smudge it for the creepy effect and call it intentional, too! Clean your top coat brush before putting it back into the bottle, though.

 

Personally, I would go with the matte effect for this design, to really make it look more like stone. You can also use a more visually textured polish for your base, I won't be naming any specifics but you can experiment with greys in your collection. In any case, the initial picture of this post is the matte effect, let me show it to you again:

And that would be it! I have done this set on myself prior to this tutorial, to mourn two recent passings: I broke a nail AGAIN, I'm cursed. And my PC also died. So as October is here, yeah, perfect opportunity:

I swear they are the exact same polishes, but the difference in light make them look different, as I haven't colour corrected my hand at all and the light was a bit on the cooler side.

Anyways, thanks for reading and be on the lookout for more nail arts for this season! This might be one of my favourite ones to do nail art for, even with my palette self imposed limitations I always have a plethora of ideas, so see you all next week! Be also ready for what I wore last month, in which I will show you when the nail break occurred.