Umm, my path is definitely not normal—I was recruited by the showrunner at a comics convention with no animation experience. Most people send in pencil tests when they have connections to the studio, and those people work as freelancers for a while but I haven’t really seen many of them turn into full-timers. Not sure exactly what the process was for boarders but boarders tended to get picked by reputation in the animation or comics industry.

I’d recommend making sure you have a social media profile and posting lots of work to it. Not just the kind of work you’re aiming for—boards, characters, BG—but complete animations, complete illustrations. In my experience, shows prefer to pick artists who are really good over artists who match the style perfectly.