Do you ever just watch something and immediately fall in love? Well – Moana did that for me. I know, I’m totally late to the game… BUT, in my excuse – my daughter just started appreciating the Disney movies! Heck, she’s only 3 years old! The songs, the feelings, the animation of Maui’s tattoo… had me reminiscing. After doing a little research, it all makes sense to me now! Of course the directors of Moana also made a few of my favorite Disney movies of ALL TIME! PLUS… Eric Goldberg. No wonder I absolutely L O V E this movie.

“Somewhere in the process, Mini Maui started to emerge, almost as a Jiminy Cricket alter ego; the tattoo can’t speak, but he can communicate with Maui,” explains John Musker, who directed with Ron Clements, of the telltale tat’s development. “Maui’s full of himself, and here is someone who could poke fun at him — literally poke him.” The two directors, responsible for such Disney classics as The Little Mermaid and Aladdin, are making their first foray in a near-fully computer-animated feature with Moana, but for Mini Maui, they decided to return to their roots and create a hand-drawn character. So they recruited the legendary Eric Goldberg, best known as the lead animator of the Genie in Aladdin, to serve as Mini Maui’s animation supervisor.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/how-moanas-animators-brought-a-tattoo-life-950985/