Chris Homa is a freelance animator and video editor. He is based in New York and Philadelphia. He draws and colors all of his frames by hand.
Mercy Care is a small healthcare company. They contracted me to animate two short commercials for them about mental health. They gave me the voiceover script and a broad outline for each scene, including the visual metaphor of the cloud following a main character. But the rest was up to me. I started by building out the story more. I sketched familiar scenes from childhood barbecues, like kids playing and Dad grilling, and I imagined the main character being there, lonely, and unable to connect with anyone.
The company was happy with my storyboards and scenarios. Next step was to figure out a style. They had chosen me because they already like my bold line animations, but I wanted to do something a little different. At the time I was reading about Japanese baseball cards. I thought the clean blue lines and big shapes would give the subject matter a little dignity while still appearing friendly and encouraging to the viewer.
I try to work carefully and ask for feedback frequently. As a result, the project went smoothly and the company didn't ask for many revisions. However, they did have one request, and it was a big one: they wanted two versions of each commercial, one with a girl main character and one with a boy.
This kind of thing could easily cost a lot of time and money. But I always put a lot of work into staying organized, and building my project files carefully. So while it did take time to draw the new character frames, after that it was easy to slot them into the old project files and export the alternate commercials.