Garnished Galaxy

I really, desperately wanted to do some Guardians of the Galaxy nails before seeing the movie over the weekend. (It's amazing, by the way! Go see it!) I racked my brain for ages trying to come up with a concept that would be both a recognizable representation of the movie/characters AND doable for my skill level, but I couldn't come up with anything. I love the Guardians to bits, but they just don't have super iconic (and nail-art-friendly) logos or costumes like the Avengers & other superheroes. In the end, I went with some embellished galaxies and called it a day—I had a movie to go see, after all!

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.

Muppets Most Wanted Nail Art

Like every true '80s child, I love the Muppets. I grew up watching reruns of The Muppet Show (I'm just a little too young to have seen the original airings, but not by much!), and even now, I always get excited when a new Muppet movie gets released. So when I started seeing trailers for the upcoming "Muppets Most Wanted" movie, I knew I had to do some nail art to celebrate the occasion.

At first glance, I know this may not seem like the most Muppet-y manicure ever, but bear with me! I'm not really enough of an artist yet to hand-paint cute little Muppet faces on my nails, so I decided to match the characters' outfits (and the movie's logo, in Kermit's case) in this image instead:

Wallpaper by stuartreeves.com and characters ©Disney

I really admire other nail artists' abilities to do super detailed, hand-painted nail art for movies and other events, but I know I'm just not quite there yet. So my goal with this design was to capture the fun, colorful look & feel of the movie using techniques that are generally pretty doable for someone without a lot of amazing art skills (like me!). I feel like I succeeded—at least, I hope I did!

Read on for more details and lots more pictures!