Tintin’s newest adventure: Flying on Brussels Airlines

CNN  — 

When Belgian cartoonist Herge created a shark-shaped submarine, his iconic comic protagonist Tintin used it to sail into the Caribbean Sea to look for treasure.

Little did Herge know that his design would some day go beyond the waters of his popular comic series and literally into the sky.

Perhaps inspired by collaborations between Taiwan’s EVA Air and Hello Kitty, and Air New Zealand and the Hobbit, Brussels Airlines is the latest airline to get creative with its livery.

One of the Belgian airline’s Airbus A320s has been painted to look like the huge, black shark-shaped submarine built by the eccentric Professor Tournesol (Professor Calculus in the English version of the cartoon) in “The Adventures of Tintin: Red Rackham’s Treasure.”

The painting was produced by aircraft artist Andrew Eisele.

It took 1,500 man hours to finish.

The new livery will remain in place until 2019.