Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Moana 2 has arrived—and with it, the latest life-altering adventures of our beloved, bold wayfinder (voiced by Auli‘i Cravalho), her gregarious demigod pal (voiced by Dwayne Johnson), and an unlikely new crew (voiced by Hualālai Chung, David Fane, and Rose Matafeo). Together, they head into dangerous waters, going farther than they ever thought possible.

Much like the original Moana, the lush visuals and unique characters are of paramount relevance for bringing this incredible story to life. Recently, D23: The Official Disney Fan Club heard from the film’s heads of animation Amy Smeed and Kevin Webb, and art director, characters, Daniel Arriaga, about the thoughtful work that went into this incredible return to Motunui.

“Moana is still the same genuine, caring person,” says Smeed, “Still very determined. I’ve always loved her athleticism. [With Moana 2], she’s more of a leader for the community, so some of the things we were thinking about in animation were just strength in posing. What are the posing choices we can make to really keep that determination and athleticism with her?”

Continues Webb, “It’s been three years since the events of the first film, so Moana’s been out on the ocean wayfinding for about three years. She’s also been a leader in her village for those three years. That’s going to weigh on her and change her, so we wanted to look at her from the ‘inside out,’ so to speak. What adjustments can we make? We don’t want to change her for change’s sake; we love her, and the world loves her. But if Moana from the first film was out on top of her toes, ready to leave off the island, when we find her in the second film, she’s more confident and grounded. She’s back on her heels; she’s found her place in this world, and she actually has to wrestle with the idea of leaving. We hope these are decisions and choices that we’ve made, and the performances are something that the audiences just kind of feel—this new sense of maturity.”

“As far as physical changes, there aren’t that many,” adds Arriaga. “Because most of these big changes are going to come from her performance. But one big physical change is in her costume. Now she’s wearing the color red, because she is a leader in her community—and that is a leader’s color. Another subtle change is her hair; it used to just flow back, all the way, but she’s getting a bit more volume now—and her hair sweeps over just a little for this film. They’re subtle changes, but they show her as a bit more updated.”

One of the most anticipated new characters in Moana 2 is her ridiculously adorable little sister, Simea (voiced by Khaleesi Lambert-Tsuda)—and the entire animation team looked forward to bringing her to life. “When I first got the assignment, that Moana has a little sister, number one.: I was so excited,” Arriaga admits. “And then I just started drawing my kids. They’re older now, but I have two girls and one boy. I remember my wife doing the girls’ hair—and the minute she finished doing it, it would start falling down, because they were playing. But also, their hair is really thin at that age too, right? They don’t really care about their hair; it’s all in their faces after a few minutes, and we’d think, ‘Whatever, I don’t have time to fix this.’ So you leave it. And I hadn’t ever seen anything like that yet in 3D animation. With Simea, I wanted to make her as believable as possible and giving her any little piece of detail we could.”

Meanwhile, “Right as I joined the film and Danny headed off to modeling, I really latched on to Simea’s buck teeth,” adds Webb, chuckling. “My own daughter was blessed with my buck teeth, and, you know, I wanted to celebrate that and make it a feature that felt really authentic and really earned. So you’ll see when Simea’s talking, she doesn’t press her lips together for ‘M’ and ‘B’ sounds. She actually bites her lower lip instead. But it wasn’t just that—we wanted to be as authentic and specific as we could, to this age… There are a lot of parents who are animators, and they all brought their true-to-life moments that they remember with their kids [to the film]. And I think that’s really what makes these characters believable and memorable.”

And what about Moana’s new crew? “This is a much bigger journey now, and with a bigger canoe,” explains Arriaga. “Moana can’t do all this by herself. She has to have a crew. Part of her crew is the big, huggable, and awesome Moni [voiced by Chung]. He’s very passionate about storytelling, and about keeping the history of Motunui alive. That’s what he documents. And those ‘siapos’ [a type of Samoan cloth] Moni makes are drawn in his own style. And one other thing: He’s a huge fan of Maui’s!”

“For Moni, we always said [in real life] he’d be a theater kid,” jokes Webb. “He’d totally go to fan conventions like D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event. Just a big-hearted character.” Adds Smeed, “He’s also someone who probably listens to his music all the time in his head. You often see him with a very wide smile and big eyes, because he finds the joy in everything.”

Arriaga continues, “Another essential person to the crew is Loto [voiced by Matafeo], who’s only 16 years old. She’s young, but she’s a genius. She’s an inventor. She’s the engineer of the group. She’s always fixing things, and her main tool would be used for multiple purposes—for chipping, for hammering, to sand things down. The rope on her belt is a measuring tool with shells, so she can measure distances. We wanted her look to contrast with Moana; since Moana has long hair, we went with short hair. There’s a gap in her teeth, and she has a mole; I’m always looking for those unique little character things.”

“Loto reminds me of a hummingbird,” Webb adds. “She flits and darts from one thought to another both physically and mentally.”

“And then one of my favorites: Kele [voiced by Fane],” says Arriaga. “He’s an old guy, right? He’s been farming his entire life, and he’s a little disgruntled and grumpy, and has no intentions of ever going out to sea. But because of his talents, he’s necessary; without him, they can’t do this trip.” Adds Smeed, “You’re often going to see Kele in poses where he’s a little bit hunched; his shoulders roll forward, his neck is out a bit, and he’s super expressive with his face—in part because of Danny’s awesome character designs.”

Continues Webb, “I think of Kele like a piece of driftwood. He’s got these gnarly hands, and these bony knees, and these little angular ankles and stuff—which actually ended up becoming one of the central pieces of how we posed him.”

“All of this gives us the ability to really play, especially with some comedic moments,” explains Smeed.

As far as challenges, every animation team faces them—and one that stands out for the Moana 2 crew was of the non-human variety. “Thankfully, we have such an incredibly collaborative studio here,” says Webb. “And we had to team up with every department to kind of figure out a way to animate an entire weather system. Different types of tornadoes, tidal waves, lightning strikes, stormy waters… That was definitely challenging; I’ve never had to worry about ‘tornado continuity’ before,” he adds, laughing.

And, considering that some time has passed between films, updates to technology were certainly utilized by the studio: “There’s a lot of technology that we developed for the [weather]… things that we needed to unravel and unpack and figure out. But then there’s also incremental updates all the time; we had new systems that allowed us to build custom rope rigs on the fly. There’s a big difference between a rope being pulled and a rope being tied in a knot; you need two entirely different systems to do that.”

All told, “a huge theme of this film is connection,” explains Smeed, “and connecting with the people of other islands. Thinking about these new characters, the three of us have talked so many times about who our favorite new character is—and it’s Simea. Seeing that bond between her and Moana, and how that changes Moana, because she’s going to go out on this journey. She went on one in the first film, but it means something completely different this time around. The stakes are much higher—and how does that affect Simea as a small child and growing up in this world? And then especially to see how it affects Moana in terms of her determination and her risk-taking… I think for me that was a very special thing.”

Moana 2 is now sailing into theaters!