AnimChallenge

Hands MiniChallenge | April 2025
This challenge is organized on our discord server

Join our Discord server for more information and learn how to submit your animation

Join Discord
The winning animator will get a live, 1 hour one-on-one mentorship call with Remi Comtois!
The Challenge

It's time to get Hands On in this month's Mini AnimChallenge!

Agora Animation Supervisors, Anna White and Remi Comtois, want you to animate hands displaying some kind of emotion. If you'd like to learn more tips on animating hands, you can follow Anna's course in the Agora.community Course Library. 

Objective:

Create up to a 15 second animation of hands displaying emotion. Your character can be angrily slamming a fist on a table, excitedly texting a friend, or picking up a sentimental object. Really focus on the hands and how they express emotion without seeing any facial features. 

 

Rules

- Animate the hands showing some kind of emotion
- No Teams
- Try not to include the face
- No longer than 15 seconds maximum.
- Any rig and any style can be used (3D, 2D, Stop Motion)
- Upload submissions in the #challenge-submissions channel on our Discord server. 

Submit your shot on Discord by April 20th 11:59PM PST
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AnimChallenge Official Rules and Regulations

Upon submission of an animation, you hereby agree to abide by the Animchallenge Official Rules and Regulations

ABOUT ANIMCHALLENGE
AnimChallenge is a regularly-scheduled animation competition that allows animators to challenge themselves and improve their skills with creative prompts and friendly-competition. Started in 2019, AnimChallenge has gone through many evolutions, first starting as a monthly challenge, then partnering with Agora to scale up the challenges and offer studio-level assets for the challenges, and now, evolving into a format of smaller, shorter challenges with a couple of large scale challenges throughout the year. AnimChallenge has always kept it fun and creative, and we’re excited to keep that going in the years to come!

Frequently Asked Questions

This depends on the challenge! Right now, our Mini AnimChallenges can be submitted in the #submissions channel in our Discord Server. However, there will be challenges in the future where your submission will be made through the website. You’ll know where to submit via the submit button on the AnimChallenge page of the agora.community website.
Any animation that is over the duration specified for the challenge will automatically be rejected by the server. Even if it’s one frame over. However, you are free to use however many frames per second as you wish as long as your animation isn’t over the stated duration.
If you are having trouble accessing the AnimChallenge Discord channels, you may not have selected the correct role. Roles can be selected in the #rules-and-about channel, or you select them upon joining the server.
Physical prizes are created and dispatched through a 3rd party source. It can take 1-3 months for prizes to be delivered. If after 3 months you have not yet received your package, please reach out to us at info@agora.studio. By providing your email address and phone number, we can make sure that you receive delivery notifications from the dispatch company. Please note, we are not responsible for any missing or damaged items unless physically sent by us.

Digital prizes will be coordinated with you through the email address you provide, or through your Discord server account.
The 3rd party creation and delivery source will ship to almost anywhere in the world, however depending on your country, you may be asked to pay import fees by your country’s postal service.
If the challenge requires you to submit via the website, we have a manual approval process so please allow 24-48 hours for your shot to be reviewed and accepted.

If you need to submit your animation through Discord, any messages received after the advertised deadline will not be taken into consideration.
You may submit your shot until the deadline determined by the countdown timer on the AnimChallenge page on the Agora.Community website.

Please make sure you leave yourself time in the challenge to export your shot and submit it where required. Once the deadline has ended you will not be able to update your submission.

There have been rare cases where the time zone has changed during the challenge and caused an inconsistency with the deadline, in these circumstances, we may accept late submissions.
Sometimes we create rigs exclusively for the month of the challenge or have an agreement with external artists to only host during the challenge. If you no longer see the rig on the website, it is no longer available for the reasons stated above.
The use of AI created assets may be accepted, but we highly discourage the use of AI generated video. Voting happens by a team of professional artists and it is at their discretion if AI content is considered in their decision.
Having people assist you in the challenge is ok, as long as the animation created is 100% your own.

Here are a list of allowances
  • Rigging
  • Modeling
  • Texturing
  • Character Design
  • Voice Acting

And a list of of things you aren’t allowed to have a assistance with
  • Animation
  • 2D Assets like backgrounds
  • Special Effects (2D or 3D)
  • Rendering
  • Compositing
  • Lighting
  • Sound Design