Tutorial: Mermaids Tail

We all know The Little Mermaid! I was watching the movie and as always I was in a world of magic, haha. I wanted to recreate a mermaid look but didn't know how. Then I bumped into some mermaid manicure. Then I mixed and matched what I saw and kinda made my own mermaid tail pattern manicure! 

I'm showing the tutorial of this scale nail pattern on just one nail, my ringfinger, as an accent nail. It's up to you if you paint just one nail like that, a couple nails or all of them. 

The things you need:
- Base coat
- Few different color polishes.
- Top coat
- Top coat with effect (optional)
- Dotting tool

Step 1; Use your base coat to prevent your nails from discoloration and let it dry. Paint the nails you're going to create scale on in a light shade nail polish. This will be the base color. This can be white or the lightest shade color you chose to use for the scales. I painted my nails with Catrice 540 Am I Blue or Green.

Step 2; Take all your colored polishes you are planning on using for the scale. Make large dots of each color on a piece of paper, this will make creating the pattern much faster. Take your dottingtool, pick up some polish from your piece of paper and make a dot at the top edge of your nail(s), near your cuticle. Now use the other colors to make a line of dots on the top of your nail(s).

The polishes I used for this tutorial are; Catrice 540 Am I Blue or Green, Catrice 400 Blue Cara Ciao, Catrice 410 Pool Party at Night, Golden Rose 311, Essence 38 Choose Me, China Glaze Deviantly Daring. 

Step 3; Repeat step two. Make a line of dots underneath the one you've already got on your nails. To get that scale effect you have to overlay the second line of dots over the first. Do this layer after layer, line after line, till you've got your whole finger like so.

Now you can leave your nails like this, plain with one accent nail and add some tiop coat. I do like this, only I would have painted the other nails another color that matches the glitter or holographic polishes in the scale. 

You can also paint your other nails like the scale pattern I just did...

...but I didn't really liked my nails like that. They were still too plain to call it a mermaid tail so I added a golden glass fleck polish, China Glaze White Cap, which really finished my manicure. It made the dots look more like they belong together.

That's the tutorial. It's very time consuming I can tell. Ever made a mermaid manicure? Think this one looks a bit like a scale?