For those just graduated , or between gigs. It can be tough keeping your momentum or focus month to month. During the year, try and put sometime aside for one or some of the following…

1. Update your portfolio/demo reel keeps you on top of your practice… use a monthly challenge to add some new content to keep reel fresh or work on some classic animation fundamentals.
   Added bonus of sharing work with the community, and potential feedback
   Check out:-
   11 sec Club
   Loop De Loop
   51 Animation Exercises
   
2. Look at doing a microshort to get work out on the festival circuit or explore teamwork, workflow and pipelines – under 1 min can be a bit more achievable. You never know whose watching, and you might get laurels too
   Check out:
   Cardiff Quick Draw – new updates soon
   Hot shorts
   
3. Attend community socials in your area, find your tribe!
   Share your work, get involved with any animation challenges they have
   Check out some of these:
   Animates ( Manchester )
   Animorsals ( Nottingham )
   BAM ( Bristol )
   Overlap ( Birmingham )
   Festivus ( London & others )
   
4. Attend or Volunteer at conferences / summits.
   Keeps you upto date with trends in industry, and connect with others
   Check out, but not limited to
   Motion North
   Move Summit
   Children’s Media Conference
   
5. Attend of Volunteer at an Animation Festival
   Great for seeing new inspirations, connect with others, panel Q&As, socials
   A great database resource here – https://www.animation-festivals.com/
   and here’s some recommends
   Manchester Animation Festival
   Cardiff Animation Festival
   Brighton International Animation Festival
   
6. Learn something new – check some of these
   Agora Community – courses and tutorials
   Courses on Artstation – this ones cool – Ed Hooks’ Acting for Animators
   The Rookies – courses and competitions