Peggy Wolven

@vexedmuddler.bsky.social

3053 Followers 364 Following

Fashion for the Scientific Body. Nails, nerdy and not. https://linktr.ee/vexedmuddler 🩷💛💙 She/her, artist, scientist, nail polish nerd, friend to underloved animals.

An array of 9 (3 rows of 3) emojis of a male Maratus spider with arms up in the classic dance pose. Each has a different pride flag on the raised abdomen flap. In order m, they are the progress pride flag, pan, bi, lesbian, gay, trans, aromantic, nonbinary, and genderqueer.
A close up of 4 fingers on my left hand. The background of each nail is a murky teal polish with green-turquoise shifting magnetic pigment and pink/orange green shifting iridescent flakes. Atop that I hand-painted a variety of colourful bacteria on my pinkie and ring nail, and the majority of a black and white Goliath beetle on my middle nail, with its blue- purple wings spreading across my index and a bit of my ring nail.
A close-up of 4 nails on my left hand. They have been planted with a collection of milky white polishes that contain different colours of holographic glitters. I blob-brushed them on in two layers, using the different glitter colours to create a roughly diagonal gradient of 3-4 shades across each nail, which combine to create a rainbow across the full hand.
A photo of my left hand with all nails facing the camera. Distributed across all but my pinkie nail, I have painted (parts of) a giant leopard moth against a pale, frosty, sparkly green background.
A close up of 4 fingers on my left hand. All are painted with a black nail polish with silver holographic flecks as the base. My index nail features the Orion capsule with solar panels splayed. The far side of the moon spans the tips of my middle, ring, and pinkie finger, and on my ring finger nail the earth is visible, halfway risen beyond the lunar surface.
Two braided challah bread loaves in rectangular loaf pans, cooling on a wire rack on a stove top. The rounded tops of the braids are glossy and brown.
A close up photo of 4 of my fingernails. They’re painted with a shimmery blue sky and simple mottled green for grass and trees, with a silver holo road trailing off into the distance on my pinkie. In the foreground I’ve painted a big rig truck spanning my index, middle, and ring finger nails. The cab is white with silver holo accents. The trailer is painted like the trans flag - long horizontal stripes of blue, pink, white, and then pink and blue again. On the side of the trailer I painted a trans symbol in black and silver holo.
A photo of my left hand showing all 5 nails painted in a sheer but sparkly green. The thumb is at the bottom and features a glass mug of golden-amber beer with a healthy head of foam. The remaining nails depict a rainbow-coloured snake slithering toward the beer, tongue out to taste the air. I’m wearing a 4-leaf clover ring on my index finger and a snake ring on my middle finger.
A whole double-crust blueberry pie viewed from above. The pi symbol has been cut out of the centre of the top crust to reveal the blueberry filling (which also allowed some of that filling to boil over one section and run to the edge, eventually creating a semicircle of gooey blueberry filling tracing the edge of the fluting). Large sugar crystals were sprinkled over the top before baking, and combined with the egg wash to form a delicious-looking glossy, sugary, golden-brown crust.
A mostly bare patch of soil littered with a few leaves. In the lower right there’s a metal bowl embedded in the dirt so the rim is level with the ground surface. The bowl is full of water with sticks and soil inside, and a clump of soil growing a blue flag iris is breaking the surface at the far side of the bowl. Around the bowl are planted three clumps of sedges and three small ferns. To the upper left of the image, there’s an overturned terracotta pot acting as a toad house. There’s also a part of a concrete plant stand visible above it.
Close up of 4 fingernails with a sparkly red manicure. Across my middle and ring finger nails, I painted a realistic white horse cantering with flames for its mane and tail. Its nearer front leg is raised, and there are flames coming from its hoof as well. On the ring nail under the horse’s back end there are low flames on the ground. I painted higher flames on the pinkie nail, suggesting that the horse is leaving a trail of flames behind it as it passes.
A close-up of my thumb nail. The swirled pink and white fluid art decal has two slightly overlapping hearts punched out of it to expose the reddish-brown base colour. I painted a tiny arrow piercing both hearts in a diagonal line moving from the feathered end in the lower left to the arrowhead in the upper right.
A photo of 4 fingernails on my left hand, each hand-painted with a design to represent one of the scientists. The background for each is a translucent blue-green polish with tiny metallic flakes. On the index nail, I painted a termite with a yellow and orange abdomen, thorax, and legs, and a large brown head and mandibles. On the middle nail, a tiny white rocket slingshots around the moon, trailed by a dashed line. The ring finger nail features and large brown mite with yellow legs and head, and the pinkie nail has two black ants in a line.
A video of the magnetic rainbow aura gradient manicure in motion, starting with the thumb by itself and then transitioning to showing the other four fingers slowly shifting relative to the light source. This shows the shifting appearance of the magnetic particles, brightening and darkening as the angle changes.
A close up shot of the other 4 nails in the Beaker design from the previous post. The index nail is pink with a green shimmer, and features outlines of a magnet, a beaker, and a magnifying glass. The middle nail has an orange polish with green shimmer, and depicts a Bunsen burner with flame lit and a round-bottomed boiling flask suspended above it. The ring nail is in yellow with Greek shimmer, with an Erlenmeyer flask full of bubbling liquid, a nuclear model of an atom, and a light bulb. The pinkie nail is painted green with a pink shimmer, and shows a ringed planet, a DNA strand, and part of a molecular structure diagram.
A photo of my left hand posed to show all 5 nails. Each is painted in a dark purplish- grey polish with a pale sand-coloured magnetic pigment. On my thumb nail, I painted Albireo in orange and blue: a star in the constellation Cygnus which is an optical binary. One component of Albireo (the orange star) is itself a true binary (or possibly a trinary - the jury is still out). On my middle nail I painted the constellation Pegasus and on my ring nail I painted Cygnus. You could call it sort of a self portrait - IYKYK
A close-up shot of my thumb nail. It’s covered in a deep smoky slate blue polish, and in the middle of the nail I have painted a Little Tykes Turtle Sandbox. It’s filled with gleaming gold-tinged sand, out of which is emerging a yellow plastic shovel handle. There’s a red pail resting on the sand.
A bundle of Chelsea buns, arranged in a circle on a pan, surrounded by sugary goo. If you’ve never had Chelsea buns (aka sticky buns), they’re a bit like cinnamon rolls in structure, but have just a little cinnamon and a LOT of butter and brown sugar. They make their own sauce as they bake, and it caramelizes in the bottom of the pan. When you turn them out, the bottom becomes the top, and you have a glorious candy crunch atop pillowy yeast rolls.
A close up of my thumb nail, painted in a green magnetic polish with silver holographic bar glitters. The effect is of silver & rainbow tinsel hanging on a Christmas tree. I painted strands in a shimmery indigo with white highlights, connecting coloured lights in red, orange, blue, and yellow. Each light bulb casts a coloured glow on the surrounding green background.
A close up of my thumb nail. I divided it up into varying sizes of squares and rectangles, each painted in shades of turquoise and teal with black and white accents. Each rectangle echoes a pattern from the batik fabrics mom used in the quilt that inspired this manicure. (Yes, I have a LOT of teal and turquoise nail polish - it’s my favourite colour, and I definitely have at least 50 polishes in this colour family.)
Video “fly-by” of a Lego train set on a short stretch of track, starting from the engine and going past 2 other cars to the caboose. The train is styled like an old fashioned steam train, with a blue body and brass-coloured details. The second car is a box car style that matches the engine, with a flat, fenced roof area. The third car is a flat bed carrying a large seated polar bear, which is wearing a green scarf and holding a bell. The caboose matches the engine, with the addition of a red ribbon with a large bow on the roof. All the cars are decorated with holly-like wreaths and swags.
A shot of my hand with all 5 nails facing the camera. My middle finger and thumb have silver snowflake knuckle rings (just the tip of the thumb one is showing at the bottom of the image). Each nail is hand-painted in sections with a candy apple red nail polish for the false flowers, a bright green for the lower leaves, and a white with a slight pink shimmer for the background. Thin gold lines separate each segment, and connect the tips of the leaves with nearby leaves from other plants. The whole effect looks like cloisonné or stained glass.
A close up photo of 4 finger nails of my left hand. My index and pinkie nails are painted with just the Cosmic Cliffs polish, with no nail art. The polish itself is a mix of metallic microflakes in a shifty reddish copper with a smattering of purple, blue, and green flakes in a translucent pale blue jelly base. The middle and ring nails have the flakie polish on just half the nail, starting from the tip and ending in a jagged line about halfway up. On the proximal half of the nail, I’ve painted a gradient from an almost-black midnight blue to a royal blue, and added a bit of a translucent white mist near the edge of the flakie transition. I then highlighted sections of that edge with a thin white highlight as a sort of rim lighting effect. I added stars with white polish over the entire nail. Most are simple white dots, with a few larger stars rendered with “starburst” diffraction lines.
A close up of my thumb nail (unfortunately not as crisp as I’d like since I forgot to take a photo of it and had to screen grab this from a video!). The background is a gradient of dark to light blue nail polish with small silver holographic glitters. Over that is painted a black silhouette of the demon with his wings and arms raised above him, claws out. His eyes are glowing yellow slits, and I used blue cremes to highlight some of the muscles in his arms and wings.
A close up of my thumb nail painted in a sheer nude base with a detailed depiction of the character Columbia’s mouth from the moment in the Sweet Transvestite song where she stage-whispers “bite” and then flicks her tongue out, sweeps it quickly to the side, and then pulls it in before swiftly bringing her teeth together. I’ve captured the tongue out and to the side, teeth bared and surrounded by bright red lips.
A shot of my full hand with all 5 nails visible. I’m wearing a jumping spider face ring on my thumb knuckle and a snowflake ring on my middle finger knuckle. The background for each nail is painted with a frosty translucent white polish filled with various sizes and shapes of white and light blue glitters, mostly hexagonal but with a few circular and snowflake-shaped glitters, plus a light dusting of blue shimmer. The whole manicure has been coated with a matte top coat that gives an extra frosty vibe. Each nail features a hand painted jumping spider based on the Maratus genus. Most are at the tip of the nail such that the proximal end of the nail is “up” and the tip is the ground, but the thumb nail is reversed so that the tip is “up” and the proximal end of the nail is the ground.
A shot of my thumb with the nail facing the camera, tip down. There is an image painted on the nail of a male Maratus jumping spider in a classic mating dance pose: butt flap raised straight up, and one pair of legs raised to the sky. Instead of real Maratus colouration, I painted the abdomen with the gay pride rainbow, the intersex flag on top of the cephalothorax, and the trans flag colours along with the brown and black stripes from the progress pride flag on the raised legs.
A photo of my hand with all my fingernails facing the camera. My thumb is coming up from the bottom of the photo such that the nail slightly overlaps the tip of my ring finger nail. Together, the two nails complete a partial skeleton, with the skull painted on the ring nail and the neck and rib cage painted on the thumb nail. My index, middle, and pinkie nails all have simple spermy ghosts painted on them - one each on the index and pinkie, and a cluster of 5 on the middle. The ghosts and skeleton are all painted with white nail polish on a background of a dark brown nail polish with a red shimmer that appears to almost glow.
A close up of my thumb nail painted with a metallic pink polish with green-gold flakes. Over that, I painted two plants: the one in the lower left is very dark, almost black, and has lanceolate leaves on alternating petioles. Across the top and trailing to the right edge of the nail is a pothos plant.
A short video of a plastic Barbie-sized skeleton riding a black light stand. It’s seated on one of the height adjustment knobs, with one leg on either side of the central rod. It is leaning to its left (our right) with its left arm dangling and its right arm raised, as though to balance itself. Its right hand is wearing an oversized yellow mitten with a red cuff and a red heart in the palm. The skeleton is wearing a light brown toque with a white pompon, and has a child’s plastic novelty ring around its waist. The ring features a Santa face, lit up in alternating red and blue flashes.
A close up view of my thumb nail. It’s painted in a gradient of sparkling dark blue with rad shimmer near the tip to lighter blue at the proximal end. Both polishes in the gradient contain holographic pigment, so there’s a scattering of rainbow sparkles throughout. In the foreground at the proximal end of the nail, I painted a silhouette of trees in black, and in front of those, two observation domes lit in blue and purple. There are a few stars painted in the sky - simple white polish dots.
A shot of 4 of my finger nails, painted in the bright yellowish green of new growth. The index, middle, and pinkie nails have leaves painted in a darker olive green, and a magenta shimmer over the whole nail. The ring finger nail features a cuckoo wasp in blue and purple and green glittering iridescent polish with black legs and antennae.
Close up of my thumb nail, painted with messy, swirling, interacting horizontal stripes of blue and green and brown. There’s a reddish-brown dot near the tip of my nail, giving the whole thing the look of an alien landscape.
A close up shot of 4 finger nails with a circus theme. The index finger is painted in a plain sunflower yellow creme polish, and the pinkie in a baby blue. The middle and ring finger nails have a creamy off-white background. On the middle finger nail there’s a tiny painting of an elephant balancing on a red and white striped ball. The elephant is in profile, trunk raised, and wearing a red and yellow saddle blanket. On the ring finger nail, I painted a clown face with blue high-arched eyebrows, a round shiny red nose, and a big painted red smile outlined with a ring of red.
A shot of my hand with all 5 finger nails visible. They are painted with a dark indigo polish, with abstracted flower and insect designs in pink, blue, green, and red.
A close-up shot of my thumb nail, painted in a glittery royal blue polish, with the word “water” painted sideways on it in all caps using white nail polish. Toward the bottom of each letter it turns to light blue, and under the letters there’s a pool of swirled white and light blue polish with reflective glitter sparkles.
The face of a grey Scottish fold cat, sort of upside-down. She is lying beside me on the sofa and craned her neck waaaaaaay back to look up at me past my arm, but thanks to the angle of the camera all you can really see of her is her face and those big amber eyes.
A close crop of my hand holding a miniature plastic human skeleton, my fingers wrapped partly around its torso so that 4 of my nails are in view (my thumb is on the skeleton’s shoulder and turned mostly away from the camera). My thumb, index, and pinkie nails are painted with a shimmery teal (the polish that inspired the manicure). My middle and ring nails have a turquoise creme polish for the background sky, and depict a rib cage (middle nail) and skull (ring nail) of a fox, with grasses and yellow flowers growing through and around them.
View of my hand with all 5 nails facing the camera. The thumb shows an overhead view of a bowl of spaghetti, with the noodles extending across the full nail, and the sauce and 4 meatballs plopped down in the middle. The other nails all show a side view, each of a heaping pile of spaghetti topped with sauce and 2-3 meatballs. The negative space above the heap is painted with a sheer nude jelly polish. On all nails, the spaghetti noodles and the meatballs are matte, while the sauce and the nude background (where applicable) are glossy.
Photo showing my hand with all 5 nails facing the camera. My thumb, index, and pinkie nails are painted in a frosty, glittering silvery-white with a faint blue shimmer. My middle and ring nails have a deep blue base with snow-covered mountains painted in white, blues, and periwinkle. The middle nail has a realistic painting of an inuksuk in the foreground, with a light dusting of snow over it.
A close-up of my thumb nail. The almond-shaped tip is painted with a flaky, sparkly green polish to echo leaves. The actual beetle elytra take up the part of the nail that’s attached to the finger (making the green section a sort of “French tip”. I painted the elytra in white creme polish with black lines and dots based on actual beetle species, then topped them with a shifty, shimmery polish topper that gives a pink and yellow sheen over the white areas and green in the black areas.
A shot of all the finger nails facing the camera. The background polish is a deep blue with pale silvery-blue magnetic particles, and looks like sun glinting off the water. The buoys are hand-painted in bright creme nail polish shades, featuring many different types and colours of buoys arranged as though hanging off a net.
A small brownish-grey tabby crawls face-first into a crevice between a pouf, a box seat, and a wall. He squirms, butt in the air, and then awkwardly twists so he’s face up in the corner. A larger calico cat watches from the top of the box seat.
Close up of the thumb nail with swirls and blobs of shimmering purple, green, blue, and orange over a deep blue base. There are two large white 4-pointed stars and a bunch of smaller pinprick stars scattered all over.
All 5 fingernails aimed toward the camera showing a cottagecore manicure. The thumb features a frog playing the banjo, with a swampy, flaky background. The index has a pair of fly agaric mushrooms, one with a snail on top, on a murky green background. The middle nail has a navy background with pink and green flowering vines. The ring shows a white duck with a blue bow around its neck against a red shimmery background. The pinkie is more of the flowering vines but against a sage background.
A greyish brown tabby kitten attacking a cardstock scratch-off calendar decorated with eels. He begins by trying to bite the edge while it is held up by my husband, but then stands straight up and uses his paws (good boy!)
A close up photo showing all the fingernails and thumb nail facing the camera. There’s a gradient of colour across all the nails such that the pinkie and thumb and both fully blue, the middle is fully green, and the index and ring finders are ombré. The rainbow sheen of the magnetic topper shows best on the pinkie here since it’s a little out of focus. Each nail has either stripes or dots in dark orange, in addition to the black gill lines and black and white eyes.
Close up on four fingernails showing a hand painted white unicorn against a shimmery blue, green, and pink nebula with white stars. The unicorn’s head is on the index finger, while the neck and mane flow across the middle finger and the ring and pinkie fingers just have the nebula background and stars.
A young grey tabby (Timiny Cricket) sits on a stair, 2 steps down from the landing, with his face turned toward the camera. Behind him on the landing is a black witch’s hat with gold skulls & crossbones. The hat is lined up perfectly so it looks like Timiny is wearing it.
Multiple short videos stitched together, all featuring a grey Scottish fold cat in a bright orange jack o’lantern costume. She’s on a dining table beside an assortment of unrealistic plastic animal skeletons. She looks mildly irritated but willing to put up with it for treats.
A red fox laying on an electrical box, with the lower half of its body turned away from the viewer. It has half-risen, as though suddenly made aware of something in the direction of the viewer, and its face is ¾ toward the camera.
This photo shows the full mani, all 5 nails visible, though the index and pinkie are a bit out of focus. My thumbnail features the Canadian and US flags flying side by side. The other 4 fingers feature my best attempt at recreating famous landscape paintings in nail polish. On my index, J.E.H. MacDonald's Autumn Algoma. On my middle nail, I painted Lawrence Harris' The Idea Of North. My ring finger (which I think came out the best) Franklin Carmichael's Autumn in Orillia. My pinkie shows my best attempt at Arthur Lismer's Isles of Spruce.
Shot of all 5 nails on my left hand, facing the camera. The thumb nail is painted with a blue braid with gold tube crimp against a grungy teal background, index features a complex gold cog-like piece of steampunk machinery against the same teal background, middle has a painting of the hextech anomaly with a black starry background, ring finger is Jinx’s purple toothed hood against a grungy hot pink, and pinkie is Vi’s “VI” face tattoo against the same hot pink.
Photo showing all 5 nails facing the camera. The whole mani uses 4 polishes: one white with a soft pink shimmer & iridescent flakes, one pink with blue iridescent flakes and yellow shimmer, one shifty metallic emerald-to-lime green, and one sage green with pink shimmer. Each nail is in one of the 4 colours, with scale lines in another colour, and a couple of scales filled in with a third colour.
A close-up photo of a manicure on 4 fingernails. The nails are painted with a bright pinky-red creme polish and have hand-lettered c u n t across them, one letter per nail from index to pinkie. The lettering is lined in a sparkly black-adjacent polish and filled with a shimmery purple polish.
Close up of manicure across 4 fingernails (thumb excluded). The background colour is a sort of swampy jelly green with green flakes at the tips. The velvet worm image starts on the middle fingernail and stretches across the ring and pinkie nails. It’s depicted spraying glue, which shoots across the index nail. The species depicted is blue with yellow speckles.
Shot of a manicure showing all 5 fingers of one hand. Each nail has a different base colour and a fish hand-painted on it. The entire manicure uses 5 colours, giving a graphic look reminiscent of the work of Shepard Fairey. The 5 colours are: light turquoise, dark teal blue, bright red, dark brick red, and a pale yellowish-cream.
A video from my Instagram - the Star Wars opening theme plays overtop as the camera pans across a shelf of Star Wars Lego ships and minifigs. My right hand pulls into view, short nails painted in a shifting pink/purple/blue/green polish with stamped Star Wars images.
Male orb weaver, looks to be an Araneus species but they all look the same to me.