Disney Moana

Moana singing. I was asked to do a singing test to show how a performance may differ from a regular dialog shot.

I did some traditionally animated character exploration tests for Moana a couple years ago. Here’s the first, exploring how Moana might play with her hair.

Here’s another Moana test. This one to explore how her hair would move in the wind.

Another traditional character exploration test. Moana interaction with her hair. It is very difficult to have a character touch her hair in CG. These tests were to show how much Moana’s hair was part of her character.

It’s Maui Time! #doodles #scrapwood #maui #moana #disneyanimation #yourwelcome

This was a beat board sketch I did from the very first Moana pitch (almost 5 years ago.) As you can see Maui was very…uh…bald, and his hook was rather small at this point. He did have magical tattoos that could shoot giant crabs though. It’s always fun to see how much ideas change as the story evolves. #maui #moana #disneyanimation #earlyconcept #tattoo

Early idea pitch for Tamatoa’s song SHINY. Visualizing and storyboarding the sequence has been one of the most exciting part of working at Disney for me. I will post more exploration and storyboards from the sequence in the next few days. -Norm #Tamatoa #shiny #moana #grizandnorm

Moana is out today!!! So excited to finally share this wonderful movie to the world. We had so much fun working on the movie and it’s been a dream come true. I had the pleasure of creating some tapas for the movie. This one is Maui holding his hook and the heart of Te Fiti. Above him area some of his shape shifting form. You can see this tapa at Gamma vale and room (in the trailer too😄). Also at the end credits with @davepimentel and @johnripa ’s credit as our head of story. Hope you’ll see the movie and love it as much as we do. Xo. #Griz #Grizandnorm #moana #maui #tapa #polynesia #art #productionart

Some old concepts I did back in 2012 for MOANA. 

Moana facial expressions. It was very challenging to make her every expressions and attitudes look like a 14 year old girl. Drawing a girl is always much harder than drawing a male character at least for me.

Moana