33DC2013 Day 16 - South America

South America... I struggled with this one for a while. The one place I want to visit in South America most is the Galápagos islands. I'd love to see the unique wildlife one day. Some of the most famous animals there are Darwin's finches that became part of Darwin's On The Origin Of Species (by means of natural selection) that he published in 1859. A book that (eventually) changed how most Biologists look at nature. Darwin visited the Galápagos island during the Beagle expedition in 1835 where he collected the finches he found on the different islands.

Darwin's finches, drawn by John Gould

I used this drawing for today's manicure. I started with a base of white nail polish. I had resized the drawing and printed it with my laser printer. I used this video tutorial for the technique.

I had a bowl with vodka (only a little is needed), submerged the cut out print in it and pressed it onto my nails.

I'm not completely happy with the result, but it is a nice first try. Not all images transferred that well. I forgot to change the printer settings to best quality, I think that would have been better. Best printing quality has more ink, and therefore should transfer better. You can also see that the darkest finch heads transferred better.

Also, I should have placed the images the other way, so they don't appear upside down in a normal hand pose. I didn't think that one through *winks*. My right hand is actually better than my left (and I did that one first... figures). So, here's the right hand, I'm especially happy with the thumb, that one is perfect!

I hope you enjoyed this attempt and check out the other ladies below *points to the InLinkz collection*