This is my entry for „The Journey Begins“ challenge. I used Animation Master and Photoshop.

Here is the story:
Since his early childhood Jonathan dreams to fly.
Every evening his grandma told him stories of the former times, when birds of their kind still had wings to fly. Every morning he ran outside to watch the paradise birds leaving their trees and flying to the open sea. Jonathan so much wished he could join them.
As soon as he was able to hold a pencil Jonathan starts drawing all different kinds of flying machines. Unfortunately he never had the chance to build one of his inventions.
One day when he was out in the forest, climbing on the huge trees, he realised tiny blue spots on the bark and when he stepped on a branch which was covered all over with this blue spots the branch suddenly breaks and Jonathan managed to grab a vein in the very last second to stop him from falling to dead. Once again he wished he could fly.
Later when he told his grandma from his adventure she got very excited and ask Jonathan to bring her a piece of the bark with the blue spots.
Jonathan who saw the fear in his grandma’s eyes ran as fast as he could to get a piece of the bark.
When he gave it to his grandma she starts to shiver and had to sit down. It took a while until she was able to speak again. Than she told Jonathan what this blue spots are.
The blue spots are the first sign of a very serious illness which affects the trees. It starts quite slow, but when not stopped in early stages it will affect the whole wood and kill all the trees in it. There is only one way to save the trees. A medicine made from the Blue Moon Leaf Flower, which was quite common is the old days but now had vanished totally from the wood.
There is only on person who knows where the flower can still be found. The old hermit on stone-bridge island. But there is no other way to get there than flying and we lost this ability long time ago.
Now it was Jonathan’s time to get very excited. He said to his grandma that they may not be able to fly by themselves but that he could build a machine which can do. He would just need the material which he could not afford till now.
Grandma agreed with Jonathan and both went to see the tree committee to give a report of what they have discovered and asked them to help build Jonathans flying machine. It didn’t take long to persuade the committee and shortly after the work on Jonathans machine started.
After three weeks of hard work the airship was finally finished. Jonathan named it after the nickname of his Grandma. It referred to the time when her feathers where still black as the night and she was know through out the wood as the “Dark Lady”.
The next day, when all things Jonathan would need were brought on board

The Journey Begins.

You can find a hi-res version here: Jonathan's Journey