I have been doing research online to help give me a starting direction for the upcoming competitions I will be entering in June.

It looks like I will be entering 3-D Nail Art for Premiere, Orlando (Everything is Bigger in Texas theme), and the Fantasy Nail Art competition (Dog Show theme). 

The following weekend is IBS, Las Vegas where I will be competing in 3-D Nail Art (Breaking the Code) and Fantasy Nail Art (Day of the Dead) as well. Needless to say I have a lot to get ready for, since this is my first time competing in the 3-D and Fantasy categories.

In my research to get ready, I have turned to the internet for ideas and techniques.

YouTube has been a huge help; there are some great videos that have really given me some good ideas and techniques. 

Sam Biddle has a Two-Step Fantasy video (part 1 & part 2) which has some great ideas for making human like figures out of acrylic — a huge help for my fantasy competition ideas. 

Doing research on Google has helped a lot. I have watched dog show video clips to get ideas. Fortunately, Day of the Dead is a subject I’m familiar with, but I still did some reading up on the subject to get inspired with ideas and thoughts.

Research is crucial for all of us newcomers. Knowing more about a subject can only help you in the end.  Nail competitions are about skill, detail, and originality. 

The more you know about your theme the better your design will be. Sometimes we assume we know the subject enough, which I thought I did until I started reading about Day of the Dead, for example. 

After my research, my ideas and the path for my design have totally changed, because I learned things about the subject I didn’t know. Now I’m ready to get started on my designs. I know it’s February and competitions aren’t until June, but this way I have time to work out bugs in my designs and I’m not rushing last minute to finish my nails right before the competition. 

I hope this is helpful. Look for my blog updates about constructing my designs, and what I run into as they progress into what I hope are winning competition nails for myself and my Team.

My first attempt at sculpting a dog out of acrylic.

— Amanda