Captain America: The Winter Soldier Nail Art

I really enjoy doing nail art that reflects my other (non-nail-related) interests. During the last year I've done manicures to celebrate my favorite hockey teams and events, my local football team, fashion I admire, and movies I like. It's just so much fun for me to wear my various loves on my nails that I jump at the chance to do so whenever one arises.

With that in mind, I think the nail art event I've personally been looking forward to the most all year has finally arrived: the release of Captain America: The Winter Soldier! I'm a HUGE Marvel comics/movie geek, so I've literally been counting down to this one for something like two years now. And as soon as I started seeing official movie stills and magazine covers being released a few months ago, I started getting nail art ideas.

I tried to capture the iconic looks of three of the central characters in the movie with these nails: Captain America (index/middle/ring), Black Widow (pinky), and The Winter Soldier (thumb). Cap's nails portray the design across the chest of his new uniform; Black Widow's nail shows the design on her belt (more or less); and the Winter Soldier's nail is meant to look like the character's biomechanical arm. I was a little nervous about attempting all this nail art because I had really specific images of it in my head and I didn't want to mess anything up, but I'm actually quite pleased with how everything turned out!

Here's the breakdown of the polishes and tools I used for each design:

• Captain America: OPI Incognito in Sausalito (base color), NARS Galathee (star and stripes), striping tape, and star-shaped Nail Vinyls
• Black Widow: tenoverten Carmine (base color), Zoya Trixie, Essie Licorice, small nail art brush
• Winter Soldier: Zoya Trixie (base color), tenoverten Carmine (star), Zoya Claudine (stamped lines), star-shaped Nail Vinyls, and MoYou London Sci-Fi plate 05 

All nails are topped with a couple coats of HK Girl Top Coat.

Here's a shot where I attempted to show how the stripes on the Captain America nails all line up to create the design on his uniform. This was probably the most fussing/fighting with striping tape that I've ever had to do for a manicure, so it was a bit of a patience-tester, to say the least!

And here's a shot showing off what turned out to be my favorite nail of the group: the Winter Solider nail. I knew I could get the red star on there without a problem using my star-shaped Nail Vinyls, but I puzzled over how I was ever going to manage those lines for days and days... until my brand new sci-fi plate from MoYou showed up at exactly the right moment. This design was perfect for what I wanted to achieve and looks so much better than if I'd attempted to freehand something.

My only small regret about this manicure is that I don't quite feel like I did the Black Widow nail justice. I struggled with it for a long while and even redid it once, but that hourglass shape was a real challenge for me. I hope my freehanding skills continue to improve to the point that if/when Black Widow finally gets her own movie, I'll be ready and able to execute a fabulous design in her honor.

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As if Cap 2 isn't enough excitement for one week, there's actually something else I'm super excited about right now: as you may have already noticed, my blog got a makeover! I worked with the wonderful Carrie of Carrie Loves Design Studio and she put together this amazing new look for my site. I'm so thrilled with how clean and professional it looks—she does amazing work! I just keep visiting my own home page to bask in how lovely everything is.

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Whew, I think that's everything for today! I'd love to hear what you think about this manicure, or the site redesign... or, if you're just excited about Captain America too and want to chat about that, I'm definitely game. :)

Thanks for looking!