Heroes vs Villains #2: The Rogue and the Celtic Sun

The X-Men cartoon premiered in 1992, when I was five years old. Searching for reference shots for this week's challenge, I started watching it again on Netflix, and oh my god. This explains so much about me. The propensity for quoting things, the "accept everyone" attitude--and my love of strong female heroines, leather jackets, multi-color hair, hip belts that have better things to do than hold up your pants, and knee high boots.

It's that later bit that inspired this manicure: Rogue.

(I'm so glad my nails aren't magnified like that in real life. They look so much neater when they aren't two inches from your face.)

For this one, I used three coats of China Glaze "Celtic Sun" for a base (more on that in a minute), and Sinful Colors Professional in #946 Happy Ending (x2) for the green stripes. For the black accents I used my black Claire's Nail Art Pen. For the accent nail, I used Pure Ice "Siren" with a streak of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in #300 White On. I topped it all off with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip Top Coat, and can I just say, it's my new favorite top coat?

I think Rogue and Mystique make great foils for this challenge, since Mystique was once Rogue's foster mother (at least in the mythology of the original cartoon. With all of the revamps that have happened in the last twenty years, I don't know if this is still true).

This was my first real introduction to comics, and I really feel that the X-Men story is one that we need right now--the message that no matter what our differences are, we can still live together in peace, and that a little tolerance can go a long way.

This was my first time trying anything by China Glaze. Here you can see my nails before I added the accents:


That's two coats of Siren and three of Celtic Sun. My camera doesn't like bright things very much, so it really doesn't show that this is a highlighter yellow. It's also very sheer, even with three layers, and I had some trouble applying it. It was difficult to get an even coat, and when the brush passed over a previously painted area there was an issue of balding. I'm glad I used it as a base, since covering it with the green made the unevenness less noticeable. I think this is another color that would benefit from having a white basecoat.

I also had some issues with the brush. One of the strands hadn't been cut, so I had to do that myself.

I know that everyone else really seems to love these summer florescent, but so far I'm not crazy about them. I guess I'm more into the dark, iridescent colors, and those are the textures I tend to go for.