Before & After: Mayan Era

Hello!

This week's time period in my Llama Nails challenge is the Mayan Era! One of the coolest facts I know about Mayan culture is that they had a sport that was the forerunner of basketball; they played on a stone court with a rubber ball that they had to throw through stone rings mounted on the wall. Sounds like a lot of fun, except that often the losers were killed. That part probably wasn't so fun.

I've never hidden the fact that I have a little bit of a dark sense of humor, and to my mind my newly aquired NerdLacquer in Warrior Ethos was the perfect polish to use as a base for this manicure in light of that. Both the name and the color of the polish--a red base with gold and black glitter--seem perfect to represent that basketball-related part of Mayan culture:

NerdLacquer Warrior Ethos

Mmm, NerdLacquer goodness

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Then I decorated the base using Barry M Gold Foil and Cheeky plate C; that pattern has a sort of Mayan decorative look to it to me. Finally I finished off with a tribal skull image from Cheeky plate L and Konad Black, to represent the sad fate of the losing team leader:

I love how this came out. A bit dark and maybe a bit morbid, but the reality is, the humankind can be dark sometimes! They Mayan culture certainly isn't the only one that has a history games and death being interrelated (the Ancient Romans are probably the king of that particular realm, lol), and I've always thought it was a really interesting connection to modern basketball. So I just had to do it!

Thanks for taking a look, and please check out the other Mayan manicures, which will almost certainly be less bloody than mine. :)

Hugs,
M.