Super Mario Brothers

Like most kids born in the 80's, I grew up playing Super Mario Brothers on the original Nintendo.  I've wanted to do a Mario nail design for a while, and since my parents recently unearthed my old Nintendo console while cleaning the garage, I thought now was the perfect time.

Polish Used:

• Sally Hansen Insta-Dri - Rapid Red
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - White On
• Sally Hansen Intsa-Dri - Lightening
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Breezy Blue
• Forever 21 - Apricot
• Piggy Polish - Polar Sea Ice
• Revlon Dark Pleasures - Talk Dirty
• Wet n Wild - Black Crème
• Base and top coats

Other Supplies:

• Nail art brush
• Square silver studs

For this look, I used all polish, no acrylic paints!  Aside from Mario's face, a lot of the designs are pretty simplistic, so polish has a better look since it is bold and one dimensional.  To create this look:

1. Apply the base colors - thumb in Apricot, index and pinky in Rapid Red, middle in Breezy Blue, and ring in White On.
   
2. The index and pinky are going to be outlined nails. 
• Use a nail art brush and white polish to fill in the center, leaving only a border of red.  You could have also started with a white base color and painted the red, but painting rims is tricky and the method I used is much easier.
• Apply a square silver stud to the base of the nail, inside the outline.
  
3. Paint the star on the ring finger.
• Paint the outline of the star in black.  For simplicity purposes, and to make my star even, I painted a star with all the connecting lines as opposed to just the outline.
• Paint yellow inside the star.
• Use black polish to add two eyes, then add white highlight marks.
  
4. Paint the red mushroom on the middle finger.
• Paint the red mushroom cap.
• Use white polish to paint the body of the mushroom, and the three dots on the mushroom cap.  
• Add two black eyes, and white highlight marks
  
5. Paint Mario on the thumb. 
• Paint the outline of Mario's face with black polish.
• Fill in his eyes and the circle on his hat with white polish, and fill in his mustache and hair with brown polish.
• Fill in the hat in red and add a red "M" in the white circle.
• Paint blue irises, black pupils, and white highlight marks for his eyes.
  

Now I feel like playing Super Mario Brothers!  Might need to hook up my old Nintendo :) Here's a closer look at the final product.