Skateboards coated with Tony Hawk's blood sell out almost instantly

The limited-edition boards cost $500 each and sold out on the website in under 20 minutes

A share of the proceeds from the sale of the 100 skateboards will go to 5 Gyres and Tony Hawk's charity The Skatepark Project. Reuters

A limited run of 100 skateboards, painted with a mix containing the blood of famed skater Tony Hawk, has sold out.

Dubbed the Hawk Blood Deck, the boards, priced at $500 each, sold out from the Liquid Death website in under 20 minutes.

The board features a cartoon of a muscular bare-chested man with a can of Liquid Water for a head. Thorns jut out from his shoulders and there are a pair of eyes in his chest. The figure carries a bloody axe while holding up a hawk skull, a nod to Hawk’s “Birdman” moniker. The slogan “Murder Your Thirst” decorates the top of the skateboard.

On Wednesday, Hawk shared the board-making process in a video posted to his Instagram page. In it, he is shown getting his blood drawn and later being mixed into a bucket of red paint, which is then used to coat a skateboard deck.

The project is a collaboration with Liquid Death Mountain Water, a water company that Hawk recently became an ambassador of.

“I didn’t read the fine print and now Liquid Death officially owns my soul,” Hawk says, in deadpan jest, while a medical professional draws blood from his veins.

“They’re gonna mix my blood into the paint and do a limited run of skateboards using my real blood in the graphics,” he said.

A share of proceeds from the sale of the boards will be donated to the 5 Gyres non-profit organisation, which aims at reducing plastic pollution, as well as Hawk’s The Skatepark Project, which assists underprivileged communities in building skateparks.

As novel as the idea may seem, Hawk is not the first celebrity to attach his name to a blood-infused product.

In March, US rapper Lil Nas X released the “Satan Shoes” in collaboration with streetwear company MSCHF.

The devilish trainers each contained, according to the company, “one drop” of human blood. However, the blood used belonged to MSCHF and not the Old Town Road rapper.

Priced at more than $1,000 a pair, the shoes sold out in under a minute. However, Nike didn’t take too warmly to the shoes, filing a lawsuit against MSCHF alleging "the swoosh on the controversial shoe violates its trademark and damages its brand.” The two companies agreed to a settlement in April.