How to Pursue a Tattoo Artist Career

Thanks to the popularity of a few reality shows, many people now want to become a tattoo artist. But it can be a challenging career and it may take longer and require more work than you may realize to have a career as a tattoo artist.

Instructions

1. Decide who you want to learn from. Most tattoo artists go through an apprenticeship under the instruction of a professional tattoo artist. The person you learn from should be experienced, reputable and well- known. They should be someone whose technique you admire and they should have many photographs of tattoos that you can look through. Ask if you can volunteer in their shop just to see how they work before making a decision.

2. Be an artist. You will not make it as a tattoo artist anymore if all you know how to do is follow stencils. Tattoo artists create masterpieces to translate onto people's skin. You must know how to draw and truly love it to become a tattoo artist. Most tattoo artists do drawings or paintings or work in other media as a hobby.

3. Choose a school, a system or an apprenticeship that will teach you more than the technical way to give tattoos if you want to have a career. You have to learn how to use tattoo equipment, maintain cleanliness, sterilize equipment, deal with clients and maybe how to run a business. But you also have to learn how to draw and the art side of tattooing.