HBP Presents Starry Night Sky

I am in the 'Hobby Polish Blogger' Facebook group. They do a themed blog link up every month and I decided to finally try joining in. The theme for July is Starry Night Sky which was too enticing for me to resist. I decided to get literal with the theme and create constellation nail art featuring the Summer Triangle which is blazing in the sky overhead this time of year.

From index to pinkie finger I painted Aquila, Cygnus, Lyra, and Delphinus. Since all I have to work with are nubs, Cygnus had its wings clipped and is more accurately the Northern Cross. The constellations aren't perfect but I think they are at least recognizable and I am happy overall with how things turned out. One thing I am less than happy with is the shrinkage I have at my tips, which is something I haven't really experienced before but that I attribute to the sheer number of layers of polish that went into creating this manicure.

I started with a base of Enchanted Polish Regal and then topped it with OPI Color Paint in Indigo Motif. I topcoated that with HK Girl to help it set because the OPI seemed to stay soft for quite a while after painting and I ended up smudging one nail and having to redo a second. I then topped them with a coat of Enchanted Polish Instant Galaxy which is very aptly named and did a wonderful job of approximating a stellar background. I used Urban Outfitters Silver Holo and a dotting tool to place the stars of my constellations. I had the "bright" idea of using the holographic bar glitter in Zoya Electra as the lines creating the constellation figures and soon regretted it because it ended up taking hours of tedious effort that failed more often than it succeeded. Finally however, I had a manicure that reminded me of the start charts I used to teach myself the heavens when I was young. I topped it with yet more HK Girl and found it almost too shiny to photograph so I tried a matte topcoat instead but that looked awful.  I did a final layer of HK Girl and worked to find photographic angles that minimized glare. The topcoats caused some bleeding of the base colors that turned several of my stars blue so I went over them again with more silver holo. Whew!! I think this may have been the most labor intensive manicure I have ever done. But I do like the end result. 

These nails are ridiculously sparkly and holographic in the sunlight. The bar glitters are small enough that they sort of shift in and out of visibility which is a really neat effect. The microglitters from Instant Galaxy lend another touch of realism, particularly given that the Milky Way runs through the Summer Triangle so it is rich with background stars.

I'm glad I finally decided to tackle one of these themed link ups. It pushed me outside my comfort zone and while I wasn't quite anticipating how much time I would put into the manicure I have had a lot of fun admiring the star chart that is literally at my fingertips.

An InLinkz Link-up