If your state or other locality requires a license to operate as a tattoo artist, there are various
stages you will have to go through.

However, one part of the process that may or may not be regulated is the apprenticeship. Whether
or not you need a license, whether or not you need to pass health inspections, whether or not
you need to pass a written exam, you will want to undergo a period of apprenticeship.

An apprenticeship is a time in which you work with, and learn from, an experienced and probably
licensed tattoo artist. This should be someone with several, or many, years of experience (some
states require that the mentor have at least three years' experience as a licensed artist).

While you work at the mentor's studio, you will not be paid. You are there to learn how to use the tattoo equipment,
how to clean the tattoo equipment, and how to evolve your designs from pictures on paper to real
artwork that is inked onto human skin.

The artist is helping you out by giving you the benefit of his or her experience, and won't be
expected to pay you in any other way. However, before you embark on an apprenticeship, DO be sure
that the expectations of the arrangement are known by both parties, and that a contract of terms
will be signed. This is only fair to both parties, you and the mentor.

For more information on this topic, see our FAQs on 'So You Want to be a Tattoo Artist.'