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No you don’t have to go to college. If you’re not great at drawing it might not hurt to take some art classes though, and if you want to have your own shop I’d take a few business classes.

What you have to do is find an artist that has the same style you’d like to do and BEG him to "hire" you on as an apprentice. I say "hire" because you basically have to be the shop b*@!ch for free while you apprentice. That’s where you get your education from.

As for liscensing.. each state has their own standards and there’s also a national liscensing board. If I were you I’d google tattoo liscensing for your state or just talk to the artists in your area. Good luck.

Club Fed, leavenworth, KS. cost me 3 1/2 years of my life

The following is not a Tattoo course.

Ok I am going to let you into a little secret, first you go and get your upper arms tottaly sleeved, during this process you are entitled and usually welcome to ask as many ?’s as you can INTELLIGENTLY think of.

Step 2 aquire the neccesery equipment. now a note on this step, some will say that if you are not prepared to outlay several $1000 dollars on an autoclave your a scratcher "rubbish" Disposable just about everything is available these days and to be quite honest i would prefer not to be tattooed with used anything except the frame and coils.

3. Practice. Practice. Practice. You can tattoo oranges and other fruit such as grapefruit, bannana’s. Pig skin is available from butchers also there are practice skins available on the net from various sources Im told drum skins are also good when held in their frames however I have not tried this method.

4. Do a blood born risk course or similar, wiping the table with the dish cloth isnt good enough sorry. If You slightly pay attention when the tattooist is preparing your skin you will have half an idea how to go about this again ask q’s

5. Learn how Your gun works, The last thing you want is for your gun to fail halfway thru a piece and be stuffed do you? re-aligning a stencil is near immpossible

6. Do yourself FIRST that way will learn how to hold the gun how much pressure to use how the ink flows etc also you wont make to many enemies that way.

This is by no means a complete guide to the art but if you are a little smart its not to hard to figure out the rest. I have no art training what so ever.

if you truly are a good artist (and be objective and honest about this, just because your mom or friends say you can draw, doesn’t mean you can) then you don’t need art college. infact you don’t really need it at all if you want to become a tattoo artist. just practice your skills, and try to get an apprenticeship at a reputable tattoo shop, they will also help you with your art skills. you don’t want to open a shop before you know anything about tattoos, that just doesn’t make sense. ride out your apprenticeship, you will learn a lot. some shops will charge you to apprentice there, some won’t. so maybe that money you’re saving up could go to that, or perhaps just to help you get by while you’re apprenticing because a lot of shops won’t pay you. you will learn everything from proper sterilization to using a tattoo MACHINE (don’t call it a gun, you will get laughed at by proffesionals and called ignorant). you will also pick up tips on tattoo laws and business aspects. every state is different as far as licensing goes, you can either research your state on the internet, or ask at a local shop, or better yet, get an apprenticeship and you will find all that out on the way. i hope i didn’t leave anything out. hope this helps.