Tropical Island Nails

Unfortunately, I was never able to get a good picture of the details of these nails. They show a little scene of a palm tree on a sandy tropical island leaning over the ocean during a sunset. This pretty much the shortest my nails could have been to pull of this whole scene without making anything too small or out of proportion.

1. I started out with a base coat to make sure my nails weren't stained by the colored nail polish.
2. I then applied one coat of white nail polish to give me a blank canvas for the colors of the scene. Painting onto a white base lets me use much less polish to get vivid colors.
3. Next I made a gradient between yellow and pink for the sunset sky. I used a kitchen sponge cut up into pieces to dab on both colors and blend their border until it was an even transition.
4. I carefully painted the light blue ocean with normal nail polish, making sure I didn't cover up too much of the yellow.
5. The rest of the color was painted with acrylic paint and small paint brushes. I started by adding the tiny sandy island to the very base of my nail. I used a much barker brown to make the skinny trunk of the palm tree. Then I turned my hand over and painted the green palm leaves upside down. This way they were a little more organic looking and didn't all look exactly too perfect.
6. Then I went back over the ocean portion with streaks of light and dark blue to make it look more like the moving water of the ocean.
7. I created setting suns with individual craft glitters attached with clear nail polish.
8. I sealed in the acrylic paint with a topcoat.