My previous nail art post featured alien cow nails! Today, I bring you another funky manicure – Octopus Nails!

The quirkier the manicure, the happier I am, apparently. 🙂

Do you stick to classic manicures, or do weird nails like these excite you, too?

Want to know what inspired this manicure? True story: an octopus actually predicted the soccer World Cup champions!

His name’s Paul the Octopus, and if you want to read about this incredible sea creature who should’ve been named Zoltar instead, keep reading. I’ll provide a link at the bottom of this post.

Octopus Nail Art Swatches

All swatches have:

• 1 coat of OPI Natural Nail Base Coat
• 2 coats of OPI What’s with the Cattitude?
• Octopus Body: China Glaze Grape Pop
• Arm Shading: NYX Ink Nail Art in Black
• Tentacles & Pupils: China Glaze Liquid Leather
• Eye Whites: OPI Alpine Snow
• 1 coat of Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat

 

 

 

*~* Nail Art Tutorial: Octopus Nails *~*

 

 

What I Used:

1. OPI Natural Nail Base Coat
2. Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat
3. OPI Alpine Snow
4. OPI What’s with the Cattitude?
5. China Glaze Grape Pop
6. China Glaze Liquid Leather
7. NYX Ink Nail Art (Black)
8. Piece of foil
9. Nail art brush
10. Dotting tool

Get ready all of your supplies, unscrew all your bottles, and get nice and comfy!

Step 1: Apply Your Base Coat

Step 2: Apply Your Base Color

I chose to use a light-blue polish to mimic a cartoonish sea so the purple octopus would stand out in contrast, but you can use any color you desire!

Click here to see a thorough review and more swatches of OPI What’s with the Cattitude? here!

Step 3: Create the Octopus Body

Using the brush from the nail polish bottle, make some blobs on each nail. I used China Glaze Grape Pop.

Step 4: Add Octopus Arms

Using a nail-art brush, create some squiggly lines for arms. Yes, an octopus is supposed to have 8 arms, but I felt that 5 fit better on each of my small nails. Add as many as you think look good.

 

Step 5: Add black shadows to each of the arms

I used the NYX Nail Art Striper in Black. It adds a little extra dimension. This step is optional.

 

Step 6: Add tentacles

Add a few drops of black-creme polish onto the piece of foil. Dip your dotting tool into the polish and add tentacles on top of the arm shadows you created.

 

Step 7: Add the whites of the eyes

Put some white-creme polish onto the piece of foil. Using your dotting tool, add the whites for the eyes.

 

Step 8: Add the Mouth

 

Step 9: Add pupils

 

Step 10: Add top coat

Wait about 10-15 minutes before you add a top coat or you’ll risk smearing the design.

Step 11: Read about Paul the Octopus

Do you like silly nail art like this? Do octopi kinda gross you out? Do the eyes look weird?