Skin Design is about so much more than tattoos.
It’s about community. Family. It’s about growth, breaking boundaries, creating a legacy—both in and outside of the tattoo studio.
People think that we’ve made it. That we’ll start slowing down—especially as I near the age most artists retire.
But, the SDT knows that this is just the beginning of our story. There’s so much more on the horizon for us, between our newest, Nashville studio, the tattoo academy, anesthesia tattoos, tattoo expos, and my upcoming book.
We really are a family; we spend so much time working together, lifting one another up.
People always ask how we do it, how we’re still expanding, still innovating in an economy that’s ruining the lives of so many artists. It’s just the Skin Design way. We’re barely getting started.
Another success in the books. Thanks to our partnership with Darc Sports, we got to collaborate with the 2024 60th Mr. Olympia competition in Las Vegas—such an incredible honor.
Breaking Ground at the Tattoo Collaboration at Mr. Olympia
Even though I didn’t get to make it to the event myself, I couldn’t be more grateful for the opportunity. I couldn’t be more proud of my SDT team—Natalie, Keebs, Claude, Yefrey, Sandra, Lia—how they showed up, made connections, and spread the Skin Design culture and values built on trust, loyalty, and respect.
This means so much for us as a company, but more than that, it’s such a huge milestone for us as an industry. To be a part of such a competitive, motivational community—it’s surreal.
It’s so humbling, getting to grow the SDT family, to continue our long-term partnership with Darc Sports, and bond with such a strong network of Wolves.
We’ve collaborated with them before, in Texas, in Brooklyn, and this event was such a night to remember for the team.
Yet another reminder of why SDT will never quit. Never f*ckin give up.
– nfgu
Uniting Two Communities
That’s what Darc Sport stands for. Their mission statement. Something that speaks to so many of the Skin Design family, too.
To people on the outside of the bodybuilding community looking in, Darc Sport looks like another athletic apparel brand.
But the more we’ve gotten to know them, their fans and supporters, the people behind the brand, the more we’ve seen—they’re more than that, too. They’re a movement.
The founder of Darc Sports, Dustin Sakr, has his own background in bodybuilding. Now, they have millions of followers. It’s so inspiring to see.
He really started something. It’s grown into something so much bigger than himself. It went from sport to finding motivation in all aspects of life. So many people show up to support them, wherever they go. It’s unreal.
The competition had so much strength in one shared space—and I’m not talking just physical. So much energy, so many people committed to their craft. So much electricity, so much support.
Now more than ever, people need something to believe in.
The economy is brutal. We’re so divided as a country, even as an industry. It’s so hard to push yourself, to work toward something bigger, when it feels like everything around you keeps pushing you down. You have to work twice as hard to get half the results.
But that’s the same reason it’s such a privilege to work alongside the bodybuilding community. They stand for something so meaningful. They never settle.
It’s not just about physical fitness; it’s about finding that inner drive and pushing yourself as far as you can go.
At Mr. Olympia, SDT was surrounded by hustlers, by thousands of people who refuse to back down. Refuse to fit the mold.
Ink and Muscle: Breaking Barriers and Making Connections
It was especially fulfilling to see, because even though bodybuilders have their own version of body modification, tattoos haven’t always been deep in that lifestyle.
Tattoos haven’t always been so mainstream. Tattoos used to carry such a stigma; too often people automatically associated them with gangs or certain groups. It’s no different with the bodybuilding community.
Online bodybuilding forums are divided on the impact of tattoos on competitions. There’s controversy as to whether or not Stan Mcquay’s tattoos were part of what caused him to place 10th in his league for 2016 Mr. Olympia.
He’s not the only one. There’s people in the industry that speculate that Lee Priest’s tattoos hurt his standings in his career, too.
To this day, there’s still a debate within the community on whether or not tattoos can negatively impact results.
But when it comes to competition that fierce, the “taboo” element isn’t even the main consideration. From a bodybuilding standpoint, tattoos can impact a lot of what judges are looking for—they can mess with symmetry, hide definition, wash out striations.
It’s so rewarding to see that, still, tattoos have started to become so normalized in a community SDT has so much love and respect for. Bodybuilders are just getting more strategic with their tattoo placement.
A lot of times, when they’re still competing, they go with forearm tattoos or more “hidden” placement instead of full back or chest pieces, since they don’t cover areas hyper-scrutinized during competition.
But things change over time. Now, even four-time Mr. Olympian Chris Bumstead has tattoos of his own. There’s more overlap between our industries than a lot of people know. Art recognizes art.
When Chris Bumstead talks about his journey, he says that it’s more than just a physical transformation—he owes it to his unwavering mindset.
I can’t help but resonate with that. Skin Design wouldn’t be where we are today if we didn’t share that perspective.
There’s a reason we push ourselves so hard. My apprentices and new SDT artists usually end up working a year straight—365 days in a row. No time off. We spend hours in the studio designing. Days bleed into night, into the next morning, finishing up huge pieces, making sure our clients leave with art they’ll be proud of. Art that tells a story.
We miss out on time with our families, seeing so much of our kids growing up, so many milestones lost.
But, we do it for our families. To create a future that’s sustainable for them. To give them a life better than we had. To leave an empire through skin. To immortalize the art that saved so many of us—myself included.
The Mr. Olympia collaboration is just another landmark in our journey, proving that our dedication to innovation, to our industry, to art, and to our clients, has no limits.
No matter what:
NFGU!