First freehand leopard

I love love love the leopard design Konad has, I have used it countless times, but I wanted to see how I would cope with attempting to do a freehand leopard print manicure. This is how it came out, this is my first time trying to do a freehand leopard print...

My other half tells me it doesn't look like leopard print, but the coloured dots look like bugs and the black looks like bug wings! So he says my manicure looks like I have butterflies on them. Not quite the look I was going for. I think the black leopard spots are a bit too thick around the coloured dots, but I wasn't too upset with my first efforts.


I started off painting my nails with two coats of Barry M Mint Green.

Next up using a dotting tool, I painted odd sizes of pink (Nina Ultra Pro in Punki Pink) green (Barry M in Spring Green) and orange (Barry M in Block Orange) I find it easier to pour a bit of polish from each bottle out, rather than trying to get a glob from each colour and dotting using the brush.

Then (again, using a dotting tool) I tried to draw the leopard print spots around the coloured dots.

To finish I  applied China Glaze fast forward top coat.

Hopefully leopard print is one of those nail art techniques which I can get better at with a few more practices! 

Dot and Flick

Another item was sent to try out by the Andrea Fulerton nail art line was the Dot and Flick nail art double ended pen. Pull the lid off and there is a very fine nib which would be used to create dots and other patterns. Unscrew the other section and there is a very long, very fine striper brush.

This is the manicure I came out with:

The base is Cyan Blue by Barry B, a gorgeous shade, love it! Now on to the Andrea Fulerton nail art pen.

See how fine both the brush is and the dotting tool nib? I found to use the striper brush a little tricky, but maybe that is because I have never used one before, or done any freehand nail art. The width of the brush was perfect in order to create thin, precise lines, but because it was so long I found it hard to control. 

For my first attempt at freehand nail art I wanted to keep things simple, so I just painted four lines starting from the corner of each nail. I think my accuracy is much to be desired but it is my first try. From far away I think it looks acceptable, I definitely need more practice using this art pen. The black polish which came out of the tool was a good consistency, just the right amount of product came out too.

To finish off I used some Juicy Jules by Models Own in the corner where the four black lines meet. The dot and flick art tool costs £4.99 and you can get it from Superdrug.