Giraffe Nail Art Tutorial/How To

Hi all! I was slightly inspired by the giraffe print from my last post that I thought I'd continue with the giraffe theme and create this:

Cute giraffes! Now to be honest I simply googled giraffes to see what they look like and found a few variations that I really liked and felt were suitable for nail art :-P But the look is surprisingly simple from a materials perspective:

We already have the orange and beige base from the the previous post that created the giraffe print. This step could easily be skipped since you can't really tell what the pattern is after you draw the giraffe :-P But basically this is a 4 colour design! (or more depending on your base :-) I used just one brush and it just needs to be small brush - you really don't need to switch brushes because you can wet and shape your brush to a fine point or use it to dab larger areas of colour.

So depending on what base you want, we can get started! The thumb is my trial nail, as usual so I will demonstrate what I did from this point on.

I started with a nail art brush and a black nail polish. I usually wet the end of the brush and shape it to a fine tip. Then I dip it ever so slightly in the polish. Little is more for nail art. I started with the ovals for the head and the neck. You don't even press the brush to the nail, you lightly swipe across the nail so it *just* touches the nail. You want a really faint outline since we will be filling with colour later and black can be hard to cover up.

Continuing with the faint outlines I continued with the top of the giraffe head. The top of the ears have a little flick upwards like a leaf.

Easy step next - I filled the mouth area with Sephora by OPI Don't Feed The Hand Models. Nice and thick so it is opaque.

Next I filled the rest of the giraffe head with OPI Fiercely Fiona. I felt this was a little TOO yellow so whatever you think it appropriate :-) I simply chose this colour because the other yellow I had was not opaque enough to cover messy black outlines and the base colours. You don't want to waste time layering colour to get opacity. Alternatively you can base the giraffe head with an opaque white but I didn't want to add another step.

Next I drew the lines of the giraffe ears, which extend from the side of the head but don't reach the other side. I also created the half 'circles' on the neck of the giraffe and finally very gently added the eyes. I didn't go quite as big as the thumb because I thought big eyes didn't look quite right.

Final touches! I filled the neck with the same base colour - Sephora by OPI Yes, Your Lioness then added the nostrils and mouth :-) And we're all done minus a topcoat. I can't express how important it is to let the polish dry. My black *always* runs and it makes me so cranky. I suggest watching a few YouTube videos while you wait ;-)

Well that is all I have for today! I hope you enjoyed this how to and will try it yourself! Have a lovely day and I will see you next time :-)