Winter is Coming... GAME OF THRONES Concept Nails

Last night, around 9PM, I should have gone to bed. But I was feeling inspired due to the very cold weather and book I'm reading - "A Feast For Crows", which is the fourth book of the Song of Fire & Ice series by George R. R. Martin.

This is more commonly known as part of the "Game of Thrones" book series, which was awesomely adapted into a TV show in 2011 by HBO, and will be starting its second season this coming April. So excited!

One of the first families the reader/viewer is introduced to in Game of Thrones is the Stark family. Their family sigil is a gray direwolf on a white field. Their family words are "Winter is Coming".

See more of my inspiration and pictures of how the concept manicure came out after the jump!

Ahh, Ned Stark!

Though I didn't have this desktop wallpaper in front of me when I did my nails, this was the general feeling/motif I was trying to recreate. The fading light and winter winds, the falling snow in the Stark family sigil colors. Winter takes its form in the books in many, many ways - there isn't anyone who is able to escape its icy grasp in all forms.

I am nowhere near as artistically talented as the lovely Leslie over at Polish Art Addiction, so I was not going to attempt recreating the direwolf.

But I think I captured the feeling pretty well!

The pictures above were taken in the following lights, top to bottom respectively: fluorescent, no flash; fluorescent, no flash (and the pinky looks oddly photo-shopped?); indoor lighting, no flash; and fluorescent again.

This was basically a gray fade/ombre with super chunk glitter accents. It's fun to call it super chunk because that is also the name of a candy bar... and now I'm thinking of Super Troopers. CANDYBAAARZ.

Anyway, some detail shots...

I varied the direction of the fade on my left index and middle fingers. The top-down fade came out better than I expected, and I like bunches more than I expected. This picture was taken in fluorescent lighting, no flash.

This picture captured both the fade detail and the super chunks really well. It was taken in the subway (you can see my train pulling in on the top left corner.. wooops).

For this concept, I used the following:
Wet'n'Wild Wild Shine - "Metallica" -- silver metallic
Sephora by OPI - "Break a Leg Warmer!" -- dark opaque gray
Wet'n'Wild Wild Shine - Clear
Funky Fingers - "Stage Dive" -- the super chunk & mini/medium hex silver glitter.

This started off with two thin coats of Metallica as the base color. Then I painted stripes of Break a Leg Warmer on one nail at a time, and waited it to dry for just a few seconds. Then, using the Clear polish, dabbed, poked and wiggled the edges of Break a Leg Warmer across the nail. Since Break a Leg Warmer is so opaque, I only had to do one thin coat for each stripe to get both good coverage and fading. Finally, I topped off the faded nails with Stage Dive, which recreates the falling snow in the desktop wallpaper above.

Metallica was mostly opaque after its second coat - the first went on very sheer. If I were wearing this color on its own, three coats would have been best for optimal coverage. It's a great metallic silver that doesn't get brush-stroky! And for 99 cents, you really can't beat it. I love Wet'n'Wild.

Break a Leg Warmer was my second favorite polish out of the Urban Ballerina collection Sephora launched in Spring 2011 (around the timing of Black Swan becoming a huge hit, coincidentally). As noted above, one coat gives you some serious opacity when you apply it. It is a good, true gray. It isn't greige or tauple or any of those colors. Just good, awesome gray.

Stage Dive is really, really chunky. It was released as part of Funky Fingers' Platinum Record collection, and I think it was basically a glitter that Color Club didn't feel like using in their Backstage Pass collection (both companies are owned by Forsythe. Love!). To smooth it down, I used a thick coat of Seche Vite, and then topped off the edges with Diamond Dry. All of the nails (with the exception of one - yep, it's that thumb right in that picture there with the lump of glitter) are perfectly smooth.

Overall, I really love how this turned out. It's icy, cool, makes my hands look like they're made of "red" like they do when it's cold, and fading into the darker days of winter (just as it seems like NYC is finally doing, too).

With that said, I'm off to read some more! I hope you enjoyed this post!