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So, for autumn, I’ve brought you a few Halloween designs! Hello, dear nail technicians! Welcome! I prepared snow-white tips and thoroughly buffed them to remove the shine. If you prefer, you can use a milky white acrylic base or, for example, a fibregel on your client. Since I already have a white tip, I can work directly on it, so I’m going to squeeze a medium-sized bead of acrylgel into the center of the tip. It’s important to leave enough space above and below to create the design. I’ve already worked my brush into the liquid. You can use Solution or Cleanser, and I’ve sped up the process a little because I pressed this eyeball down quite a lot so it wouldn’t protrude too far from the surface and would be evenly rounded all over, so it wouldn’t catch on anything for the client. You can’t see it, so although it has a 3D effect, it’s nicely flattened into the surface. While I’m putting it in the lamp, I’ll take out my black S02 gel polish, which I’ll use to paint the center of the eye. At this point, I often use the gel polish’s own brush as well, because it has a rounded tip and is easy to work with. Then, if necessary, I refine it with a dotting tool or a size 0 brush to make it even rounder. Just make sure you don’t flash-cure it at this stage; leave it in the lamp for at least one minute so it doesn’t wrinkle. Then I apply a magnetic polish to the centre, filling the entire black area with it. I magnetise it, creating what looks like a small black frame around the magnetic effect. We’ve pulled the magnetic particles together, and that creates the eye color—in this case, light blue. Then we take the black gel polish again and, using a dotting tool, paint the pupil in the centre. It shouldn’t be too large, otherwise it would cover the colour. We put it under the lamp to cure for at least 30 seconds. In the meantime, I’ll take out this Flexi Clear, which is a thick, strengthening base that’s completely crystal clear. I really like it because it can even replace Glue Gel, and we can use it to create 3D effects as well. In addition, we’ll need the S26 red, which isn’t neon or a light shade, but is instead slightly more intense and deeper in tone. We’re going to mix these two together to create this three-dimensional blood effect. When mixing materials like these, keep in mind that they all cure tacky, so afterward we’ll need to cure them or cover them with a top coat. Mix them until completely homogeneous using a spatula or a dotting tool. You can also mix them with the Slim Medium Brush, but this kind of mixing motion definitely won’t be gentle on the brush’s bristles, so I’ll only use it for painting. Now, let’s set this concoction aside and first paint a few bruise-like marks using only the S26 shade, this red color. Here, keep in mind that, just like on a clock face, you should always work from the outside toward the center with these lines, and feel free to add an occasional wave to them. One can be thicker and the other thinner. so that, like the hour marks on a clock face, these little lines bend toward the center. You can flash-cure it, but that isn’t necessary, because I’m going to paint these vein-like lines into the background as well. Since the tips have been matted, a little of the product will run into the lines and grooves. You can play around with different shades of red or add a couple of burgundy lines, but I think this red is perfect for imitating blood, and there’s no need to go any further. Try not to leave large areas of the nail tip empty, but ultimately, your clientele will determine how many lines will fit on it. Next, we can use the 3D gel we mixed to paint a band around the eyeball. First, I place the product at the base, then I place it down as a very small bead and pick up a new amount every few millimetres, because if I spread it all out, it will become flat and the product won’t retain this 3D effect. I can cover the area with roughly four beads, and here I can still add a little more to make it slightly thicker in places. I’ll let this product run a little, So it looks as if the blood is actually dripping down from the eyeball. You can do this going downward or upward, depending on what our tip—or the design—calls for. By the way, if it isn’t three-dimensional enough, you can build it up afterwards with light-curing gel, or use clear elastic gel to add larger blobs, specifically to give it more volume. But I’m going to enhance the design a little more now—instead, I’ll use the elastic gel to add a few dots. You can use builder gel as well, and I’m going to glue an eyelash onto this eyeball. If it’s applied for long-lasting wear, it can actually be worn. You can see that I was fumbling with the tweezers because I’m still a nail technician, not a lash technician, but I think we can achieve a really interesting, striking effect with this, and I’m sure there are clients who would be willing to give it a try. It’s a minor little extra, but I think it really adds a wow factor. So, once I’d managed to separate this little lash cluster into its individual sections, I placed it on the eyeball and positioned it right on the upper rounded part, where it can rest slightly. This lets me set it there perfectly, following the curve. It’s worth curing it there with a small lamp, or quickly flash-curing it in the lamp so it doesn’t rotate. I did spend quite a lot of time fiddling with it, though perhaps I didn’t need to adjust it quite so much. You can also make the lashes denser, so I took out a few more clusters. To apply them as well, I dip the base into a little glue gel in the same way, then place them with the movements you can see: I hold the tips of the lashes and attach them at the base in the glue gel, positioning them in the center as well. This will make the lashes on our eyeball look much fuller, and we can even comb them through at the end with a lash comb, making them really, really extravagant. A Halloween set. If the client doesn’t want to keep them on, these lashes can be removed after the photo shoot, but if we cover them all the way around, they’ll be really long-lasting. Actually, you can cover the tips all the way around with either a matte top coat or a glossy gel. It’s up to you. The key thing is that afterward, you should definitely apply a separate layer of gloss gel to the eyeball, and it’s also worth going over the blood once more. For contrast, I’ve chosen a matte top coat this time, and you can safely apply it over the blood streaks and even the eye, because we can restore the shine afterward. That’s another reason I don’t recommend using a matte top coat on the eye: it will dull the 3D effect, and matting a magnetic gel polish will prevent it from producing this very sparkly effect that is playing with the light right now. By the way, when I apply only the glossy top coat afterward, a 20-second flash cure is enough, because the translucent products will continue curing beneath each other in the lamp, so there’s no need to wait one or two minutes. I used BeShine because it’s thick enough to work with without it running off the eyeball or the dripping blood. It’s best to cover the eyeball first, then cure it, and bring out the blood afterward. Likewise, since we’re working with a transparent material, 20–30 seconds will be enough. Once it has flash-cured, I often place a small bead of material on my palette or on a piece of form paper, then use a detail brush to bring out these 3D nail elements, even in multiple layers, for an even more three-dimensional effect. I’m going to take a small bead of product. I apply it where I want that particular area to stand out from the surface, and I can also build it up with additional product wherever I want. It’s best not to choose a piece that’s too large, so it doesn’t run, because if it does and our matte background becomes shiny, it ruins the illusion. And there we have our first design—it has a very unique and interesting effect. At this point, you can still enhance the 3D effect a little, but that’s really just nitpicking if you want to make the design even more elaborate. What's more, if you'd like to take it up another notch, I recommend using white non-wipe painting gel to add a little sparkle to the pupil area in the form of one or two dots. I actually like to place these diagonally, with the upper one always slightly larger and the lower one a little smaller. This makes it look as though her eye is sparkling, but that really is just the icing on the cake. I hope you liked the first design. I think it’s very extravagant and, at the same time, spooky. You can vary it like this using different colors—for example, different magnetic cat-eye shades. So feel free to try green or even purple—just make sure it contrasts with the black. The next color will be No. 159, which I’ll apply to the entire tip, completely covering this snow-white base. In this case, I like to work over black when using a neon shade, or when that’s what the client requests, because then one coat is enough, right? When there’s a white base underneath. I’ll put it in the lamp for at least a minute. Then I’ll take out a stencil sheet or a palette that I can work on. I need a lighter shade, number 158. It’s a more neon yellow gel polish, and there isn’t a big difference between the two shades, but it’s just enough for me to create a subtle color gradient. For this technique, I really like using an angled ombré brush, also called a chisel brush. And I only pick up the color on the upper half of it. I turn the tip around so that the side where I’m going to apply the gel polish is facing up, and you can see that on camera it looks almost perfectly color-matched, although there is a difference: This is the lime shade, and this is the yellowish gradient. It will create a creepy effect because we’re going to paint a cemetery scene, and it will almost look as if it’s glowing in the dark. The more contrast there is in the design, the more striking it will be. I’ll put it in the lamp to cure for at least a minute, and in the meantime I’ll take out these little sponges. I prefer using it without a metal tool, and we’ll also need painting gel in two shades: olive or poisonous green, and black. If you don’t have this, you can mix it yourself; just make sure the color is completely homogeneous and even, because with the sponge technique, any pigments that haven’t been mixed properly will really stand out. So you can use it without a holder as well. The key is to stretch it well between your fingers so that the surface is curved. I’ll apply it to the upper third using lots of small movements, then blend the transition area slightly. We can repeat this in several layers, and since we’re working with painting gel, we can flash-cure it for 5–10 seconds. The product won’t run or smudge between layers. We can comfortably work from nail to nail, alternating between the right and left hands and adding several small details. To be honest, I often don’t even overdo the darker areas. The main point is that a 2–3 mm layer is enough for the upper section to create a small frame, because together with the base color, we’ll then have at least four shades. And the more shades we use to build it up, the more interesting the overall look and effect will be. We could have created the area along the free edge using a sponge technique as well, but since I had this neon yellow gel polish and this brush was already within reach, I thought, why not add a little technical variety to the design too? We can also apply the darker shade in several layers, but there’s no need to blend the colors too much—it’s fine if the whole thing remains slightly opalescent. In the meantime, I’ve put a little matte top coat out, and I’m going to mix it with black gel polish to create this kind of opalescent, translucent shade. This is perfect for creating shading, or if you have a Tiffany glass-effect gel polish like this, you can use that straight away as well. The key here as well is to mix it until it’s completely smooth and uniform, so the mixture itself shouldn’t look marbled or patchy. And I’ll use my liner brush for this, because I’ll use it to paint a few crosses in the background. These can sit quite comfortably almost in the centre of the tip, since they won’t be the main elements of the design. They simply create that eerie, misty effect and add a sense of depth by allowing us to work with several shades and build the design across multiple layers. This could actually be done with two or three layers, and these little dots can really enhance the effect. The key is to always keep the layers separate in terms of depth; this is the rearmost, farthest-away section. You could paint trees here, but not blood in the background. With this opalescent shade, you could paint blades of grass or bushes, and as we move forward, use a stronger shade. You can mix several shades from the opalescent color, but I’m not going to paint on too many shades this time, so I’ll go straight in with the very first color. But first, I’m applying a matte layer to create a bit of grip, so my brush won’t slip and it’ll be easier to paint on, because this makes the surface completely smooth. I’ve applied a matte top coat, and as if I were painting a French tip, I’m lightly outlining the shape of this little cemetery with my black gel polish, which we’ll paint in shortly. I’m filling in this area with the gel polish’s own brush, and then we can add the gravestones. I’d like a gravestone shape like this—an upside-down U in the center—with a cross rising from it. So I’m positioning it roughly in the middle, but tilting it slightly to give it an old, dilapidated feel. By the way, you can make several of these, or even add lettering to one large one, such as a year or an “RIP” inscription, I think. There are so many variations of this design, and you can add several smaller crosses, or perhaps a little fence that has already sagged and is leaning beside the gravestone. And you can see that the yellow is most vibrant there, and how well the black stands out against it. So, the more contrast there is, the more extravagant the design will be. You can even outline the tip, add more blades of grass or crosses, place dots in the background, or add bats or tree branches. You can really keep building on this and adding to it as much as will fit on the client's nail, or whatever the client would like you to create for them. This still isn’t enough: you can add lettering or details in white. I think this already looks more than good enough, but I’ll paint a few fangs protruding into the background as well. This could also be done with a translucent product to suggest depth. But with the translucent arches and dots there, the contrast is still maintained. We can also add a few more elements—or a few flying bat designs or dots—to the other side edge. The key is to cure the top coat very thoroughly before applying the final top coat, and this design looks great either glossy or matte. Let’s choose a slightly thicker material, because the more layers we apply, the more likely our design is to become wavy. In the meantime, I’ll prepare the last tip while the previous design cures in the lamp. For this, I’m going to use the gel polish I previously worked in with my Töcsi brush—the neon yellow shade 158. It really pops against the white base, and this polish is incredibly pigmented because I’m working directly on a white tip. But when I apply it over a milky or another strong gel polish base, I can already tell that I’ve never worked with a yellow like this before—it provides incredibly intense coverage in a single coat and is perfect as the base for my design. And I’m going to pair it with this pumpkin-colored shade. Unfortunately, there’s no longer any of this color left at the top, but it’s a beautiful neon orange that I’ll use to create a pumpkin background effect for you. In addition, we’ll need the S26 red that we used earlier for the eyeball design, as well as the 02 black, and I’ll use them to create a color gradient—or rather, a background effect. And I apply a thin layer of matte top coat or any glossy gel to my design. The matte top coat is the most optional part, and I’ll use my liner brush to pull these little lines of product into a circular pattern, as if you were imagining a little burrow. Then, leaving a small gap after the yellow, I’ll add orange, followed by these reddish-orange lines, and paint right along the edge using a combination of red and black. So I wipe the brush clean and start again with orange, then reddish orange, then black, blending these little shades together to make it look like a swirling, smoky, steaming witch’s cauldron. This will be the background for my design, but I think it looks really good on its own because, with this lemon-yellow glow effect and this pumpkin color, the base itself already makes a great design. But I’m going to take it up a notch. The key is not to try to blend them together too much. We don’t want a uniform transition; rather, we want to marble the colors together just like this. Keep dragging through it from both the right and left as much as possible so that this swirling, smoky, cauldron-like effect is really preserved. I think it looks really good, it’s a lot of fun to work with, and you can even create it using multiple colors. However, once you’ve achieved the desired result, don’t forget to cure it in the lamp for at least one minute so that it cures properly all the way through. Next, I’m going to apply a border with black gel polish, and I won’t use my detail brush because the border doesn’t need to be perfectly even. It’s perfectly fine to apply this black gel polish a little thicker, because we can easily refine it afterward with a liner brush—making this border neat if we want, or wavy if we prefer. It’s just an additional background effect, so it isn’t the main part of the design. The main elements of the design will be fir trees at the bottom and a bat at the top. I start the bat with a triangle like this, then draw two lines from its sides to represent the ears. From there, I work out to the right and left to form the wings, I’m going to add a little more gel polish here, but you can also use painting gel. The wings should curve upward from the ears, then extend out to the right and left in a hood-like shape, outward and downward. Instead of drawing them straight to the body, divide them in half, and from there draw them in toward the body in an inverted U shape. So the wings should have jagged edges, with at least two bends in each one. As you can see in the illustration, if I painted it on the small nail like this, it would only look like a little bird in the background. But if you paint in these little zigzags, it turns into a nice, creepy bat. I’ll put it in the lamp to cure for 20–30 seconds so it doesn’t run and spread out. And then I move on to the pine trees, which I start as long, vertical lines, gradually tapering them as I work upward. Then I pull out lots of tiny pine-tree branches to the right and left. You could also play with depth here by mixing a translucent shade, so some of the fir trees would be more translucent while others in front would be more vibrant. But I think that against my misty, cloudy background, this one shade with a few dots is more than enough. I’ll add the finishing touches and cure it, and then this one just needs to be covered with top coat. But here I recommend using a thick glossy gel, because the marble effect and the multiple layers require a fairly thick coating to achieve an even finish. You can also let it self-level. So, these three made up my little Halloween collection. I hope you liked the designs—I’m absolutely in love with every one of them, and I’ll be recreating them on clients as well. And feel free to combine colors and patterns and try out new things! I can only encourage you to do so. I hope you enjoyed the video, and I wish you all a lovely rest of the day! Kisses, bye everyone!