Butterlfy Wing Nails Tutorial

I am obsessed with painting my nails. I typically re-do them twice each week, sometimes more depending on what I have going on, if I find an idea I just HAVE to try out now, or if my current paint job is chipping or flaking. Because of this, I've been asked to provide tutorials on some of my looks.

There are many pics and tutorials out there with "How-to's" on pretty much everything, so why another tutorial? I think my designs are easy, because I am not a perfectionist, I see the beauty and the fun in little "oops" moments, and because most of what I use you can pick up at any drug store. While I do have a few OPI, and I SWEAR by Seche Vite, most of my products are on the inexpensive end of the spectrum.

So... with that said, let's begin! I am going to start with the manicure that got the request for a tutorial: Butterfly Wings!

Pic of the manicure on my actual hands.

For the tutorial, I have chosen to do the process on a set of fake nails, since I just did the manicure on my own, before tutorial. 

There are two ways to do a Butterfly wing: black first or color first. Today I am going to show you how to start with a dark base, and add color. (If you are going to be using very pale colors that might not cover black easily, then you would want to do the color first, then apply black. That will be a different tutorial)

First step: Pick a dark base color.  I chose a flat charcoal/black that I mixed myself (using LA Colors clear as the base, which I got at the $1 store)

A nice, textured flat black

Next I decided that I wanted some of the nails to have a little bit of sparkle to them (I am a glitter FIEND!)

  

I used Pure Ice Irridescent Glitter

You can see the slight shimmer on the top two nails

Second Step: Choose what colors you want your wings to be. Below I am holding 3 of the many colors I will use. These are bottles of stripping polish, the brushes are long and thin, perfect for nail art. (Sinful Colors runs about $2 per bottle, so very affordable)

If you do not have Stripping polish, or you have colors that you want to use that are do not come in the stripping paint, going to the craft store and buying inexpensive paint brushes are ideal. The two below are my favorites to use, and were less than $3 each.

 Pour a small amount of the color you want to use onto a flat surface, or into a small container. (as you can see, this old CD case is getting a lot of use). Make sure you only pour out a small amount at a time. You don't want the blob to dry out too fast and waste more than necessary.

Pretty light lime green!

Third Step: draw a long tear-drop shaped wegde on one side of the nail. (there are two main ways I draw wings, this is the first way)

Draw a second tear-dropish shape next to your first. 

 Finally, draw a third tear-dropish shape. Remember, this is your wing, there is no "EXACT" way it has to go. It can be an upsidedown tear drop, like I have below, or more angular. Whatever shape looks good to you, and "looks right" is the shape you should go with.

 Second style wing: Start with a wedge of color at the top of the wing

Add your three tear-drops below that wedge.  Make sure there is always at least a little bit of background color showing between each wedge of color, to get the right effect.

 You can always leave your wings a single color, there is no requirement that you use two colors for each wing like I do. Also, there is no reason you have to limit yourself to two colors... make your wings tri-colored, or quadra-colored if that is what makes you happy!

I am, however, going with Bi-colored wings at the moment. So here's how you do that.

Step Five: using one of the stripping colors, or small paint brush, begin to add little swipes of color. I like to add them in the corners, and in this example I made them more like a gradient of color, smoothly fading from blue to green.



If you do not like how much of the second color you put on, go back with your small brush and dab your first color along the edge where the colors meet to blend better.

If you are using stripping colors, it is ok to do all colors on one nail, before moving onto the next. You can get some great marbling effects by layering color on when the first color is still wet.

However, if you are using a small blob of paint you poured out and a paint brush, I would recommend doing all nails that you want with that color, so the paint doesn't dry out between nails.

Sixth Step: Using white paint on your small brush or stripping paint, dot little irregular dots of white in the black space. You can dot only the tip...

 Or anywhere there is a gap between the colors. Vary it up, play with what you think looks best. And remember: the white dots do not have to be perfect! They should vary in size, be oddly shaped, and do not have to be symetrical! Butterflys aren't perfectly symetrical, so your nails don't need to be.

 Last Step: Make sure you follow with a good clear coat. I use Seche Vite... it is fast drying, strong, long lasting... It is one of the FEW things I will pay more than a couple dollars for. It typically runs between $9-10 dollars per bottle, which isn't bad, but I'm typically cheap, so my being willing to pay that for polish means I adore it. 

These yellow and orange nails are a good example of not smoothing out and fading the colors into each other.

The pink and blue nail is a good example of the kind of marbling that can happen when the first color is still wet when the second color is applied.

 

Up close, you can see little color strays, odd mixing of the colors, maybe some "oops" moments... but that's ok, step back, and look at them again. From a distance the colors blend together, and you don't see imperfections, you see beautiful nails.

I hope that this will make it easy for you to do your own Butterfly Wing Nails.