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Hayk Manukyan on animating dance scenes with Harut

by Erin Hynes - February 3, 2023
Music Video Artist Profile Harmony

Hayk Manukyan is an Armenian-American animator who has worked at Six Point Harness, Rhythm & Hues, Wild Brain, Duncan Studio and Warner Bros. He has also been part of the Teen Titans Go! crew, and flexed his skills on The Drawn Together Movie!, Super Best Friends Forever as well as Birds of Prey.

Aside from his work with major studios, Hayk is well-known for his shorts and personal projects published to YouTube, Newgrounds, Instagram and TikTok. A recurring figure in his personal work is his weary-looking character, Harut. Hayk often shares videos of Harut performing a wide variety of dances, from contemporary moves pulled from pop-culture to traditional Armenian dance.

We caught up with Hayk to learn about his path into animation, the inspiration behind Harut, and his process for animating dance scenes. 

Hayk Manukyan published a compilation of Harut's dance clips animated using Toon Boom Harmony.

Can you share your journey into animation with us? How did you get started as an animator? 

Hayk: I knew I wanted to be an animator ever since I was a little kid. My interest in animation started around age seven, when I came to the US with my family. My cousins loved watching Disney animated features, and they showed me the classic Disney film, The Little Mermaid. I was fascinated by the fact that there were characters in the film who I could clearly see weren’t real, but felt and acted like they were. 

I began to question how that was done. My father, whose brother had been an animator in Armenia, explained to me that they were drawn by hand. This information was world-changing for a kid.

My fascination with animation continued throughout childhood. At thirteen years old, I sent Disney a package filled with my drawings and a letter telling them how much I wanted to work for them. I later received a package from Disney with a sample portfolio and advice on what to focus on. The package also included a list of schools I could attend to further improve my drawing skills. I sent my work to one of those schools, the Art Center College of Design. At fourteen years old, I began attending their weekend highschool program. 

By the time I graduated from highschool, I had an entire portfolio ready to send to Disney. They did consider me for a position, but it didn’t pan out. At that time they were transitioning to going fully 3D. So I sent that same portfolio to a little studio in Glendale, formed by former Disney animators. That was my big break. At age eighteen, I was hired for my first animation job.

Hayk Manukyan composited Harut into videos of real locations in Armenia.

What types of projects do you specialize in, and what have been some highlights of your career?

Hayk: I specialize in classical, hand drawn animation. Some highlights of my career so far have included getting to animate a whole section of the Teen Titans Go! movie, in the style of 1990s era Disney. This was a parody of The Lion King's intro, featuring superhero characters.

Another highlight was when I was accepted into Rhythm and Hues' 3D animation training program. Right after the program, I was hired to work on Alvin and the Chipmunks. The other animators who got accepted into that program with me are all now doing big things in animation. I’m proud to have been part of that group.

How does Armenian culture and heritage inform your personal projects, like your character Harut? 

Hayk: They say that creators are best at creating what they know. That’s definitely true for me. My personal work is always inspired by my surroundings, my culture, and history. As a result, Harut, his wife Sophik, and his sons Abo and Karo are all characters based on various people in my life. 

Besides Harut and his family, I’ve also created animated shorts of old Armenian stories such as The Liar. I also recently animated a walk cycle of an ancient Armenian legend, David Of Sassoun.

Tell us more about Harut. Where did the ideas for this character come from?

Hayk: Harut originally appeared in my first animated short, Sweet Mother Of Vartan, which I published in 2005. The short follows Vartan Dartanyan as he tries to survive the Two Ton Terror for a $1000000, and Harut appears as an extra commentator during the match. 

When I released the short online, a lot of the comments I received about the film mentioned Harut. Going forward I wanted to have a main character who would appear in my shorts. Since people liked Harut so much, I decided it would be him. 

Can you explain how you approached developing Harut? Has the character evolved over time? 

Hayk: Harut’s character started out as a tired Armenian man, just doing his job. Over time, as he appeared in more of my stories, he started to become more like my dad, my grandfather, even me. I was inspired by various people in my life, who I molded together to shape into one character.

A few years ago I became known, outside of the Armenian community, on the internet for my dance animation of the Teen Titans in the Teen Titans GO intros. After that, I thought it would be fun to do more dancing animations, but with Harut as the dancer. Something about the hardcore dancing combined with his I’m tired face resonated with people. Harut’s dancing videos became very popular.

Samples of Hayk Manukyan's animation featuring Harut from 2005 to 2022.

You often share elaborate sequences of Harut dancing on your social media channels. Can you tell us about your process in approaching these sequences, from rough animation to completion? 

Hayk: For Harut’s dance sequences I use the same process that I used for the Teen Titans dances. To start, I look around online for dance moves that I find fun. Then I try to capture that dance with really rough drawings, mostly focusing on the energy and posing. I call this the planning or thumbnail stage.

When I’m happy with the rough and it feels right, I move to the rough animation phase. I start putting the character on model, but still loose and rough. Then I move to the tie down phase where I make my lines a lot cleaner and prepare it for the next stage which is clean up and color.

What makes dance sequences a complex movement to animate, and do you have strategies you use to overcome that complexity? 

Hayk: It can be complex as a whole, but I tackle it by approaching the process in parts. For example, the hips tend to act like a bouncing ball. I’ll create a new layer on top of my rough and just animate a ball. Once that’s done, everything else works off of the hips. I do the chest in relation to the hips, and then the head, and so on.

An example of Hayk Manukyan approach to animating dancing characters, building off of a single bouncing ball.

 Do you have advice for artists who would like to develop a character of their own? 

Hayk: What’s worked for me is just spending time imagining a character in different situations. Imagine the character to the point where he or she starts to feel real. You start to see them clearly and develop an impression of them. Things they will or won’t do. Ways they will react. You’ll also develop story ideas from the imagined situations in your mind. Once you’ve spent so much time imagining and thinking about a character, developing them comes naturally.

Do you have any upcoming projects you’d like to let people know about? 

Hayk: I’m pretty busy right now with work and family, so I don’t have any big projects on the go. I do plan to keep creating more Harut dances, so stay tuned for that.

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