CNTCWC D7: Winter Characters

Hey y'all!

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas, whether you celebrate the day or not!  Today is called Boxing Day in the UK (and assorted Commonwealth countries), where tradesmen and people in service positions traditionally receive a box of gifts or money from their bosses.  I still like to think it's called Boxing Day because that's when you clean up all the boxes and wrapping paper from Christmas presents, though.  It's kind of weird having the day after Christmas be a holiday, whereas in the States we celebrate Christmas Eve instead, but I guess either way it's two days for Christmas.  Today we've come to the penultimate challenge of the CNTCWC today, and our theme is Winter Characters.

I wanted to do a non-traditional take on the theme (I can hear you gasping in shock already) so I played around with ideas for a while and something about the thought of Santa's view of his reindeer as they were returning to the North Pole after Christmas struck me as cute, so today, you get REINDEER BUTTS!

This was definitely a fun mani to do, and didn't take long at all.  I started with a base of OPI My Vampire Is Buff on all nails.  Then on my thumb, index, and pinky, I added two coats of elf Fairy Dust to give a snow-fall effect.

On my middle and ring fingers, I started by painting an elongated semi-circle of Covergirl Toasted Almond to shape the reindeer hineys.  Before that dried, I used my Kiss striper in White to add paint a V at the top of their rumps to shape the tail.  I also dotted some of the white into the hind flanks and used a toothpick to kind of blend it into the "fur".  Using elf Chocolate and a striping brush and toothpick, I drew in the antlers and created the dark stripe down each rump to finish the rear-view of the reindeer.  I dotted in some Fairy Dust around the antlers, and then put on a layer of OPI Matte Topcoat on all the nails to flatten the look and cut out the shinies.

This came out pretty similar to the idea in my head, so I feel like I might be making some progress with my freehand work.  Though it's not perfect, I still think it reads as intended, so I call it a success for now.

Please do remember to check out the other work for today's theme, and hope you're all enjoying your week.

Much love,
Ali