This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at F and M chapter.
When doing tribal nails, I’d suggest going to google and just looking at different prints for inspiration first.
Another tip: Try to pick out three colors with a similar quality. You could do brights, neutrals, matte, pastels, to name a few. I chose to use brights, in this case orange, magenta, and teal.
Once I chose the base colors, I grabbed a thinner nail art polish pen in a similar shade. For magenta; purple, for teal; navy, for orange; a dark orange. I also used a white and black nail polish pen.
To make it simple, I divided each nail into my chosen three base colors. I also suggest starting each nail with a different color, that way you can make sure no nail has the same color combination. At this point, your nails will have three color stripes with no details.
Afterwards, all you need is some creativity and a steady hand. In each stripe, I painted additional stripes, triangles, dots, or straight lines with the pen colors. A good thing to keep in mind is to not always use the pairs of base and thinner pens over each other, but to sometimes use the purple over orange, or the orange on the blue. It will complement the nails better.
Once I went through every naiI, I went back and added smaller details with the black and white pens. They were able to give it the edgy tribal vibe, a great accessory for when you are feeling wild. If you run out of patience by this part, you can leave your nails at the last step for a bold and sweet/classic look!