How did you start the project for Azur & Asmar: the Princes Quest?
First of all, there was the conception. Finding a subject and writing about it. Once that’s done, things go very fast. For Azur & Asmar, once I’d come up with relations between France and North Africa, I thought about foster brothers, with very clearcut positions – one rich, one poor – then I imagined them swapping roles over the course of the story. I wrote the first draft of the screenplay in two weeks. Then, I had to concentrate on the huge task of researching and drawing it. There were about a hundred clearly visible characters and two hundred extras to be created. I draw the main animation models, i.e. each character from the front, three-quarters front profile, in profile, three-quarters back profile, from the back, plus a few key expressions and attitudes. I have help with the secondary characters. We strive to be historically and geographically accurate. That doesn’t mean you can’t take liberties, especially as there are no images of North Africa between antiquity and the 16th
