Review & How-To: MoYou London Greek Mythology Collection 02

(Press Sample)

Hello everyone!

I'm back with a second plate from MoYou London's Greek Mythology collection, plate 02. This is another of the collage-style plates that I adore, so I'm going to show it to you and walk you through some of the ways you can use it.

To start things off with a bang, here is my video of the plate:

And then we move on to the still shots of the plate:

MoYou London Greek Mythology Collection 02

MoYou London Greek Mythology Collection 02 Left Side

MoYou London Greek Mythology Collection 02 Right Side

And, of course, the size comparison with a standard Konad plate:

And now, on the the fun part! Here are my ideas on how to use this particular plate:


1) Full-nail images. This plate has plenty of areas that you can use for full-nail images, in a variety of styles:

There's Italianate flowered patterns. Swirling orchids. Diamond mosaics. Retro geometric shapes (above the lion's face in the picture). French flourishes. Mazes. Surreal swirls. You can get at least 10 very different manis just from those patterns alone. :)

2) Individual images. This plate is based on the labor of Hercules, so there are a number of animals, some in coin-like circles, on the plate. These can be used with the circles, to look like coins, or you can pull just part of them from the center of the circles to do a manicure with the snakes (you could even separate the snakes and use different ones on different nails), the horse, the crane, the bull heads, etc.:

You can do this with stamping techniques, or you can use...


3) Nail decals! This is a great plate to use for making nail decals. The diamond pattern mosaic-like area would be great for this; so would the curved patterns at the far left of the plate. This would be great for making the 'coins' in a different color than the base polish on your nails.


4) Patchwork and/or transitioning nails. I've combined these here because there are a couple of manicures you can do here that combine both. Normally I define a patchwork manicure as a manicure that has two patterns on the same nail divided by one or more lines, and a transitioning manicure is one where the pattern turns from one pattern into another. There are a number of very interesting possibilities for these with this plate; the first picture pulls out the patchwork areas, and the second shows some transition possibilities, and ways to combine patchwork and transitioning patterns:

Straight patchwork or transition possibilities

Areas where you can easily combine patchwork and transition manis

So, let me explain. Look at the labyrinth portion of the plate, lower left. You could do a combination transition + patchwork manicure with this by putting the maze pattern completely on one or two nails, the area where the maze is bordered with the rectangular pattern (to the left of the maze) on the next nail, and then just the rectangular pattern on your last nail (your pinky might be best for that, since it's a smaller area); this would result in a manicure that transitions from one pattern into another, via a patchwork nail. You could do something similar with the area I have circled just above that, where the patteren goes from maze to floret to square-snowflake pattern, each separated by a diagonal line.

Or, you can just do standard patchwork manicures, and there are a few areas that are perfect for manicures that gently transition from one pattern to another (like the flower-to-flourish area in the lower right). And don't forget that you can put that cool lion face over 2 or more nails!


5) Build-a-scene manicures. This plate doesn't have as many options here as some other plates do, but there are still some very fun possibilities, and my demonstration manicure shows one. In my Nail Challenge Collaborative group, this month's theme is manicures based on music/movies/tv. Well, I love the movie Labyrinth,so I decided to do a manicure in honor of it, even if it doesn't so much fit the contents of the movie exactly, lol...

I started with a warm, glowing brown-gold matte, Mentality Hope:

Then I stamped the labyrinth pattern over three nails using Sally Hansen Coco A-Go-Go; next I stamped the minotaur face with Barry M Silver Foil, and finally I dotted his eye with some fierce Konad red:

I love mazes of all sorts, so I really love the being able to have a fun maze manicure when I want it. I wish I'd had this back when I went to the corn maze every fall, but they don't do it in our area anymore (sadface).

I hope this has inspired you to play, play, play! And if you like the Greek Mythology theme, don't forget that they have two plates in their Explorer collection that have single images in the Greek theme.

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