Corset Nail Art Tutorial

Hey guys! As promised I have a tutorial for the corset nails above that I posted on Sunday for FingerFood's Theme Buffet. Hope you enjoy it :)
* this is a pretty long post, as you can imagine!

So, what you will need is a base colour for your corset, I chose Rimmel Lycra Pro - Heart on Fire, as well as a fleshy coloured polish, and a black polish.  Mine are OPI - My Vampire is Buff, and Sinful Black on Black.

Then there's a load of optional extras.  I used black and white acrylic paint for my basic shapes, as my freehand can be a bit dodgy, and any mistakes with acrylic paint can be easily wiped away if you're quick.  If you're more confident in your freehand, you can just go straight in with your polishes if you prefer..  Then I used NYC Full Metal Jacket and Zoya Blaze for the necklaces, but you could always skip that part if you wanted.  I also used a tiny bit of baby pink polish to add a tiny belly button to my ladies, but that's definitely not necessary.  Then finally, a stamping plate and Konad special polish in black, which I used for the pattern on the corset, but you could literally do anything there, you could use a glitter, do stripes, a gradient, a brushstroke mani, watercolour, flowers, animal print, or even just a plain colour.  The list is endless!
Once you've managed to decide what type of corset you want, it's time to start the mani.....

1. Paint your base colour, and give it a bit of time to dry.  I used a quick dry topcoat on mine to speed this up, as well as providing a bit of protection for removing any little mistakes I might make later on.

2. Add your chosen design.  If you're using a glitter, you may want to apply the glitter over your base colour, and then add a top coat, as you don't really want a lumpy surface to interfere with painting your lines later on.  I stamped this pattern from Pueen 59 with Konad Black for mine.

3. Then I added a tiny dot of white acrylic paint with my fine detail brush roughly where I wanted the dip of the sweetheart neckline to be.  I'm useless at getting things right in the middle, so this step is really helpful for me.

4. Then I used my white paint to paint in the top section of a heart for the neckline, and also filled in the corners of my tips like you see on the ring finger.  I didn't think of it until after doing the pinky, so please ignore the pinky nail!  Think of it as painting a heart that's bigger than your nail, and hangs over at the sides and the tip.

5. Then just join the 2 corners up with a sweeping curve to create a little bit of stomach.  Don't worry if your lines aren't perfect at this point, they don't really need to be......

6. Let the paint/polish dry a bit, then go over the white lines with your fleshy coloured polish, and begin to fill in everything above the neckline too.

7. Add as many coats as you need for opacity, making sure each layer gets a bit of drying time before the next.  I used 3 coats for mine, and as you can see, screwed up a little bit on the bottom left too.  That's okay though, we'll be covering that up later anyway...

8. Then using your brush and black paint, or polish, add a sort of handle shape at both sides of the nail, on the red section only.  You want to avoid the fleshy bit, although a little overlap is negligible :)

9. Then I filled in those handle shapes, to create some curves for the waist, and painted a black outline at the top and bottom.  As you can see, mine aren't exactly perfect, but who cares :p

10. If you don't want a necklace or belly button, skip straight to step 12. If you do, then get the thinnest detail brush you have, (mine has been cut down to within a mm of it's life) and add a super fine v shape above the dip in the neckline.  Make sure to leave enough space for the pendant under it.  I also added a tiny pink dot on the tips for a little belly button.

11.Then use something sparkly and pretty as a pendant.  I added a tiny dot of Zoya - Blaze for mine, but I also think a little hex glitter would be cool, or any full coverage glitter/shimmer/metallic polish.

12.  Then all that's left to do is top coat your design, and clean up around your cuticles :D

I hope that you guys have found this tutorial useful, and if there's anything you didn't understand, feel free to comment, or ask on my Facebook page, or IG (I'll probably answer quicker on there).
I definitely think there's still a few things I need to improve about my tutorials, but hey, practise makes perfect :p

Here's a little pictorial for you all too.  I'm hoping it's fairly clear, but I probably do need to work on these a little more, I find them a lot harder than a full tutorial where you can actually explain wtf is going on in the photo :D

I really liked this design despite all the little imperfections, and I'm really looking forward to trying it again with a totally different background.  I'm thinking maybe black and purple stripes this time, or possibly a gradient of some kind.  What do you guys think?