200 Passengers Were Treated To A Masterclass In Character Design At 30,000 Feet. Here’s Why.

Forget peanuts and free magazines — this is in-flight service with a difference. Earlier this month, passengers flying from Madrid to Tenerife in the Canary Islands were treated to what may be a world first: a character design masterclass on a plane.

Standing in the aisle, the animators Carlos Miranda (image at top) and José Mansuy (below) gave a lesson in illustration, teaching the 200-plus passengers techniques for sketching a cartoon traveler, and showing them how to create basic flip-book animation.

Mansuy is a veteran storyboard artist and animator whose credits include the Woody Woodpecker movie and Sergio Pablos’s Klaus. Miranda is a storyboard artist and art director at Mondo TV Canarias, a studio in Tenerife. He also set up the Spanish animation news website TFanimation.com, which organized the masterclass in partnership with the low-cost carrier Iberia Express.

The masterclass was held in tandem with the 16th edition of the Salón del Comic de Tenerife, a comics and illustration convention held on the island. In recent years, Tenerife’s animation and creative industries have boomed, owing in large part to the local government’s financial incentives.

As far as we’re aware, this is the first such event to take place 30,000 feet up in the air. If we’re wrong — or if you’ve attended a masterclass in another unlikely location — let us know in the comments below!