bloodysticktape

noun
/'blədē•stik•tāp/

1. Taped marching snare sticks, held in the left hand during traditional grip, that has accumulated blood due to a popped blister on the ring finger.
2. A graphic designer, percussionist, and goofball who creates art on the internet.

Hi! I'm Bee!

Welcome to the wonderful world of bloodysticktape. I'm a graphic designer, artist, and percussionist. I can be found working on school work with the lizards, teaching the young percussionists of the valley, or marching along with the pack.

Have questions? Want to chat? Need a drumline show or props? I'm your gal!

PORTFOLIO

A sample of some of my favorite works that I've done for myself, for clients, or for school.

Photography by Jeff Shoemaker

Peter and the Wolf Pack

Every winter season, I have the opportunity to work with the Sky Ranch Middle School Indoor Percussion ensemble. I instruct the line, write the drum beats, and design the props every season. For the 2024 season, our show was titled 'Peter and the Wolf Pack.'The show takes themes from 'Peter and the Wolf' and excerpts from the Pride of the Sierra, Wolf Pack Marching Band. Movements include: Chop Step!, Fight Song...?, Peter-Bolt, Rebel the Bird, The Wolf!, Battle Hymn, and TAG!

PROBLEM

I needed to design two eye catching props that reflected the story of the 2024 show, represented the goofy performance quality of Sky Ranch Middle School Indoor Percussion, and had a recognizable quality to those familiar with UNR, UNLV, and the battle for the Fremont Cannon.Originally, my idea was to also include 'Raider the Duck' and 'Cougar the Cat,' which would be referencing the two high schools that SRMS feeds into. The decision to cut them was necessary as to not confuse the audience, as the characters do not actually appear in the show.

SOLUTION

I took a storybook style approach with the project, using a water colored brush to illustrate the backgrounds. I illustrated 'Peter-Bolt,' 'The Wolf,' and 'Rebel the Bird' in a cartoony style to reflect the overall performance quality the SRMS Indoor ensembles produce. The backgrounds are both recognizable scenes from the University campus; being the wolf statue at Mackay Stadium, and the quad with the Mackay Statue.

Croshellybelly Animated Intro

Concept by Shelly

PROBLEM

Shelly wanted a cute and fun animated intro for her YouTube channel. She had the exact vision in her head, wanting her username to type out across the top of the screen, while an animated version of her threw a yarn ball up in the air.

SOLUTION

I took to Adobe Animate to animate the Shelly caricature in 14 fps. I drew the remaining elements of the piece in Adobe Illustrator and imported everything into Adobe After Effects. Within AE, I animated the text to type out and slightly shake. The background elements to have small movements, as to not distract from Shelly or the type. I also added in her flower patterned sweatshirt, which does not move as she throws the yarn ball in the air. Finally, multiple yarn balls drawn in Illustrator fall from the top of the screen, and wipe away the intro to lead directly into whatever content Shelly decides to place afterwards.

Arcade Band Posters Series

PROBLEM

Create a set of band posters inspired from 90's arcade aesthetics. Posters must include: rhythm sheets, rules, class grading system, transposition, and clef posters

SOLUTION

Inspired by jazz solo cups, arcade signage, arcade flooring, and cartoony arcade cabinet designs, I designed 16 posters for the client.For the treble and bass poster, I wanted to go with cartoony characters that fit within the theme of a 90s arcade, and plays along with the acronyms for remembering lines & spaces within the respective clefs. Aliens and space were very popular in the late 80s to early 90s, so tying in the cow imagery with the alien holding a burrito was the path I took. Playing along with the same humor, I created the "FACE in SPACE" arcade cabinet, that the boy is doing "fine" at.The clients school colors are purple, and uses stars for their logos. When creating the arcade floor pattern, I snuck in some stars to nod to the school. I used pixel and pacman looking fonts to complete the arcade look.The jazz solo cups utilizes the different brush strokes in Illustrator for the backgrounds. I used an art deco font that nods to the literal "jazz" cup, and the fact the posters are designed for a band room.

Environmental Issue Booklet

PROBLEM

This assignment called for an 8 page booklet that discussed and displayed an environmental issue of our choice, had a die cut on the cover page, and had body copy of 200 words per-page written entirely by us.I chose the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as I've always had a fascination with ocean pollution.

Rough Set 1

Rough Set 2

SOLUTION

My main theme throughout the booklet is bubbles, and I use small bubble imagery throughout the entire piece to illustrate that. I use sharp yellow imagery throughout the booklet to nicely contrast the mainly blue backgrounds and softer look of the bubbles. The secondary font that I use in the booklet is a sharp, thick sans serif to combat the otherwise cutesy, bubble font I use on the cover and last page.I wanted the booklet to tell a story as it folds down, starting from doom and gloom then going into a positive "there is still hope" theming. I did this primarily with fonts and imagery, using darker imagery at the top and finishing with more promising imagery.

NNIA and eNVision Flyers

Client Originals

PROBLEM

Part of my resolution for my last 2 years as a marching performer was to create content that I wanted to see within the music world. A huge part of learning about graphic communications for me has been how design and psychology work hand in hand. Bad design may scare away potential clients.The Director of eNVision Performing Arts and NNIA Coordinator asked me to design the show schedule flyer for the 2025 NNIA Indoor season. To work on my photoshop skills at the time, I also created the eNVision Auditions flyer.

SOLUTION

The main imagery that I wanted to use for these flyers are the performers. Without them, the activity does not exist. I also wanted this imagery present, especially in the audition flyer, to make potential performers think "Hey, that could be me!"For the eNVision flyer, I wanted the most important information to be the first thing your eye is drawn to: indoor drumline. These flyers were printed out and hung up at the marching band championships, so I wanted the flyers to be visible at such a busy event. I used simple, comic looking graphics behind the performer to represent how fun and iconic the ensemble is. I used masks in photoshop to cut out the performer, and used duotone to remove all color and then place only two colors on the performer.The NNIA flyer I wanted to make a bit more clean and professional looking, as its main goal is to inform. I used a font set with different weights to organize a lot of text efficiently while still looking good. Using simple gradients across the background image to make the text legible and making the background image secondary to the info.

"Am I the Master of my Fate?"

and

"Rest Now, Little Wolf"

PROBLEM

'Monarch of Monsters' by Vylet Pony is an album/novella that explores the themes of how trauma, selfishness, and falling in with the wrong crowd can turn you into a terrible person. A monster, if you will. Vylet explores these themes with her characters, Wolf and Aria. The album goes through multiple styles of music including, but not limited to: electronic, rock, post punk, and symphonic.Vylet always captivates me with her storytelling, and the way she experiments with different sounds and instruments with her music. 'Monarch of Monsters' hit close to home in a lot of aspects. Inspired, I wanted to create some art that ties in with the song 'Sludge' from the album.I wanted to create pieces that reflected some of my favorite themes of the album. Those being:
1. Feeling so completely isolated due to choices out of and in your control
2. Unwillingness and uneasiness to let yourself go in the hands of others, due to the trauma you have faced.

SOLUTION

"Am I the Master of my Fate" is colored specifically with reds and redish-purple hues, to illustrate the hatred, pain, and overall helplessness that the Wolf experiences through the beginning of the album and into the intro of 'Sludge.' The title of the piece is taken from the first lyric of the song, and a connection to me due to the line being rearranged from the poem 'Invictus.' The wolf is illustrated in an awkward, uncomfortable pose. The only contrasting colors in the piece are her eyes, and the single tear that she sheds."Rest now, Little Wolf" is the middle of 'Sludge.' After the torment that Wolf has succumbed to in the living realm, she is finally met with the Huntress. A being that will then go on to show patience, kindness, and undying love towards the Wolf. I used a lineless style approach to this piece, to emphasize the colors and shading.

State Park Logos and Poster

PROBLEM

This assignment called for a set of three logos and a poster representing a set of State Parks of our choosing. I chose New Mexico, and its state parks of: City of Rocks, Manzano Mountains, and Bottomless Lakes.All artwork had to be completed in Illustrator, and all body copy (written entirely by us) was to be made in InDesign. The logos had to represent each of the parks in their own ways, while still staying recognizable as a set. The poster had to be illustrated to mimic 1920s-1930s travel posters.

Rough Sets

SOLUTION

My main approach towards the logos was a boy scout badge look, as I love the "down-to-earth" aesthetics it gives off. I used a bold, earthy looking font for the type that circles around the imagery. (The font is ironically named Nevada.) I used earthy, yet eye-catching colors to simulate the badge look. Turquoise specifically for Bottomless Lakes State Park, as turquoise is New Mexico's state gem.For the poster, I wanted to use the same earthy type tones for the border, and utilized turquoise for the border and drop shadow color in the header type. I used a 1920's looking font for the header, and used saturated reds and yellows to make the header/state park name pop.
I directly eye dropped colors from my reference photo (seen in roughs) to find colors for the the rocky landscape of the illustration. I wanted to make the sky a cool, cloudy look to contradict the reds and oranges of the rocks.

Photography by Jeff Shoemaker

eNVision 2025 Bass Drum Heads

PROBLEM

For the return of the eNVision Indoor Performance group, I was asked to design the bass heads for the season. I needed to create a design that would: reflect the show, show the return of eNVision, pay tribute to the last 12 seasons of eNVision, pay tribute to our lost alumni/staff member/performer Steven, and show that we are taking something and doing it in a new, reimagined, and transformative way.I knew I wanted to have a graffiti style for the heads, as one of the show themes being "back and badder than ever," I envisioned (wink) that the graffiti style would represent creating art no matter the circumstance.My first draft, I took symbolism from some of the most iconic eNVision shows to me. This, ultimately, was a bit too confusing to audience members or even the current eNVision members that have never seen these shows.The 2nd draft of the head is where the phoenix appears.

SOLUTION

The Phoenix represents resurrection and life after death. I wanted to illustrate it with a whispy, yet edgy looking style to compliment the grafitti'd wall look. eNVision's branding consists of blues and greys, so I directly eyedropped the colors from the old eNVision logo. This also supports the initial idea of calling back to the previous 12 seasons. I put some smaller brush stroked assets to make the wall look more 'messy.' Using a grafitti style font for "eNV" and for three sharps, to represent Steven.

eNVision 2025 Season Recap

PROBLEM

Drumming has always been such a huge part of my life, and has shaped me into the creative and passionate person I am today. I have always wanted to create some sort of project at the end of my drumline seasons as a thank you to my line mates and to show off how much fun we have every season.After the passing of one of my techs in 2024, I have made it a goal for my remaining years as a marching performer to never take the seasons and my friends for granted. When creating art, I always have my friends in mind. This edit was a tribute to all of the great memories we have made together, and will continue to make.

SOLUTION

Taking inspiration from the Beastie Boys, I got to work in Premiere stitching clips together that me and my friends recorded at championships. I animated the 'Re-eNVision' logo in After Effects as if it was being spray painted to give the opening that flashiness I wanted, while nodding to the bass drum head designs (and the bass line's themes of paint.) Using simple masks, I created the fisheye look to mimic the 'Shake Your Rump' Beastie Boys video. I chose the best scenes from over 60+ clips that reflect each members personality and humor, as I wanted to reflect how special the 2025 group was. 💙♯

PROBLEM

In the Spring of 2023, I was asked by my center snare of the University marching band if I wanted to be his graphic designer for his Senior Thesis. This project would evolve into 'Raid on Rift,' a turn-based strategy game with customizable teams compiled of wacky little critters. I was tasked with creating all in-game art and collaborating with the creative directors to design the sprites for the characters.The first concepts, lovingly named "Chess Two," would follow the aesthetics of a real chess set. We would use existing chess pieces and create new ones. It was essentially a Chess expansion pack.This would not be a viable solution for a senior thesis, so we started to stray away from the chess aesthetic. Queue the tokens, which end up in the final game. These are designed to be super simple, line-art styled tokens. We we're still sticking with the medieval look.

SOLUTION

Finally, we landed on a space aesthetic. The story follows the Space Navy and Space Pirates, who are trying to harness energy from the rift to turn into ore, which in turn powers their ships. The goal as the player is to use your diverse cast of pieces (both in design and in mechanics) to obtain the other teams ore piece.For the character designs, I took inspiration from many forms of cartoony media. I wanted the characters personality, looks, and weapons to reflect their move sets within the game. Pallets were chosen for both teams, and I strictly followed these pallets to make the characters feel they belong to their respective teams.For all background work, I used water color and paint brush tools within Autodesk Sketchbook to create works that are not too distracting from the main focus of the game: the characters.For the Raid on Rift logo, I wanted it to be simple and easy to recognize. We ended up with multiple different variations of the logo, so creating the rift icon to help tie them all together helped immensely.18 unique designs across two teams, multiple pieces of background art, multiple variants of the Raid on Rift logo, and much more. Want to check it out for yourself? Raid on Rift is FREE on Steam!

Let's move to the talking stage...

(Sorry, did I come on too strong?)

Can't get enough of Bee?

I'm flattered, really. Feel free to stalk me across my many socials, where you can also find more of my work and shenanigans.