33DC2013 Day 4 - Tribal

Today's prompt is Tribal. I decided to draw my inspiration from tribal tattoos and settled on tattoo patterns used in Oceania. A great site to read about tattooing tradition is the website of Lars Krutak, a tattoo anthropologist. I used some frigate bird patterns and other motifs used on the Solomon Islands. Those are relatively simple to recreate on the nail.

Frigate bird patterns. Source

Tikopian tattoo motifs. Source

No decent bottle shot, they were all way off colour, but you can see the polishes in their bottles in other photos below. The polishes I used are:

• Catrice - 22 Bricky Mouse
• Essence - 144 Black Is Back

First some shots of the base Bricky Mouse, it's an interesting colour. It has a hint of terracotta, but not completely, I think I'll settle with calling it terracotta pink. It has some gold shimmery flakes in it as well. I think I did 2 or 3 coats, am not entirely sure.

Onto my nail art... and a badly behaving camera. I did not have one decent picture... so you're getting a few half-decent ones instead.

On my index, middle and ring finger there are frigate bird patterns. I added these with a thin nail art brush. On my pinky and thumb I have a flower and a pounder respectively. I actually prefer these more simple designs over the wriggly lines on my index and middle finger to be honest.