Animal Print Teeny Bikini

If you love 'bikini so teeny' from essie as much as I do, you will be dying to try this design. This baby blue polish served as the canvas to this cheetah and zebra print inspired layout.

Here is the tutorial:

1. Start with 2-3 coats of 'bikini so teeny' essie polish on nails that have been trimmed, filed, and base coated.

2. Use a silver polish atop the blue polish to create an ombré effect. To make the silver ombré more dynamic, use a fine silver glitter polish to start, then add chunkier glitter pieces on top. It is easiest to do so by using the kind that comes in viles or small cases. You can find this at any general retailer or art store.

3. After these steps, you should have a simple glitter ombré on your nails. Now, lets get started on the design! Start making white blobs all over the surface of your ring fingers using either nail polish or acrylic paint. These will serve as the center of the cheetah print, so spread them out enough to allow for black outlining. Repeat this on half your thumb, the upper half of your middle finger, and the bottom of your pinkie.

4. With the same white you used for the cheetah blobs, make zebra print in the areas of your nails that do not already have cheetah print. To do this, try to make your strokes even and thin, but not straight. Join them at the ends, start the stripes from either side of your nails, whatever you need to do to mix up the look of the print. 

5. At this point, your nails will most likely look like a work in progress: white blobs and stripes galore. But that's exactly what they should look like! Don't fret, nail art is a building process. Now it's time to add some orange. I used 'WHAM! POW!' from Color Club, but any neon orange color will suffice. Using a toothpick or nail dotter, place the orange polish on the white blobs that are located on the top third of the nail. This is the start of the ombré within the cheetah print itself.

6. Mix two parts orange polish with one part white, and apply this color to the blobs located on the middle of the nail. 

Then, leave the rest white. Continue this pattern for the rest of the cheetah blobs.

7. Now it's time to apply some black! Using a thin brush, preferably a trimmed one, outline the newly colored blobs. Leave some spaces open, so you will be roughly painting 'C' shapes around the blobs. 

8. Trace over the white zebra print you painted before, leaving some of the white showing. This will complete your painting for the day!

9. Apply gems down the center of the thumb, separating the two animal prints.

10. Use a shiny, protective top coat, and you're done! Enjoy your animal ombré mani!