Tasha Sounart (née Wedeen, formerly Harris) is an American animator, artist,

video game designer Video game design is the process of designing the content and rules of video games in the pre-production stage and designing the gameplay, environment, storyline and characters in the production stage. Some common video game design subdiscipline ...

, and writer. She was the designer of

Double Fine Double Fine Productions, Inc. is an American first-party video game developer of Xbox Game Studios based in San Francisco, California. Founded in July 2000 by Tim Schafer shortly after his departure from LucasArts, Double Fine's first two game ...

adventure An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...

RPG RPG may refer to: Military * Rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon **''Ruchnoi Protivotankoviy Granatomyot'' (Russian: ''Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт''), hand-held anti-tank grenade laun ...

Costume Quest ''Costume Quest'' is a party-based role-playing video game developed by Double Fine Productions and published by THQ on October 19, 2010. In the game, the player controls a child who is trick-or-treating with their twin on Halloween night when th ...

''. She is currently an Associate Creative Director of Theme Parks at

Pixar Pixar Animation Studios (commonly known as Pixar () and stylized as P I X A R) is an American computer animation studio known for its critically and commercially successful computer animated feature films. It is based in Emeryville, Californi ...

Career

Tasha Sounart began her career as an animator on ''

A Bug's Life ''A Bug's Life'' is a 1998 American computer-animated comedy film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. It was the second feature-length film produced by Pixar. Directed by John Lasseter and co-directed by Andrew Stant ...

'' at

. She was an animator there for nine years, before leaving Pixar for Double Fine Productions. At Double Fine, she was the lead animator on ''

Brütal Legend ''Brütal Legend'' is an action-adventure video game with real-time strategy game elements created by Double Fine and published by Electronic Arts for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game was released during October 2009 in North America, E ...

''. During the period of time when ''Brütal Legend'' was left with no publisher, the head of the Double Fine studio,

Tim Schafer Timothy John Schafer (born July 26, 1967) is an American video game designer. He founded Double Fine Productions in July 2000, after having spent over a decade at LucasArts. Schafer is best known as the designer of critically acclaimed games '' ...

, gave the project leads a chance to forget about what they were doing and come up with concepts and lead a team on smaller projects over the course of two weeks to develop prototype games, dubbed the "Amnesia Fortnight". Sounart pitched an idea that she had when she was at Pixar about a game centered on kids trick-or-treating on Halloween. The prototype game, ''

'', was pitched to publishers, and

THQ THQ Inc. was an American video game company based in Agoura Hills, California. It was founded in April 1990 by Jack Friedman, originally in Calabasas, and became a public company the following year through a reverse merger takeover. Initial ...

greenlit the game with a $2 million budget. Tasha Sounart has a webcomic called '' Tasha's Comic'', which was created as part of ''

Double Fine Comics Double Fine Comics is a webcomics collective supported by Double Fine Productions. Each comic varies in style and tone, but they all reflect the eclectic humor found in the Double-Fine produced game ''Psychonauts''. The webcomics were published ...

''. During the production of ''Brütal Legend'', Double Fine's webmaster,

Klint Honeychurch Klint Honeychurch is an American graphic designer, video game designer, programmer, and writer. He designed Double Fine's free Adobe Flash games: the graphic adventure '' Host Master and the Conquest of Humor'', sports game parody '' My Game Abou ...

, created a flash game based on ''Tasha's Comic'', called ''

Tasha's Game ''Tasha's Game'' is a free Adobe Flash puzzle-platform game by Klint Honeychurch, with art by Tasha Harris and music by Bert Chang and Razmig Mavlian. The game was published by Double Fine Productions, and was originally playable on their website ...

'' with artwork and animation by Sounart. On September 9, 2011 she posted her last comic on Double Fine's website and moved her comic to her personal blog because she had left Double Fine to rejoin Pixar as their lead franchise artist. On December 19, 2012, Tasha Sounart announced that she was expecting her first child. She gave birth to a son named Colton on July 3, 2013.

Recognition

Tasha Sounart won awards in the categories of art and for "Rising Star" at the Women in Gaming Awards at the 2011

Game Developers Conference The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tutori ...

. ''Tasha's Game'' was nominated for "Best of Casual Gameplay 2008" in the platform browser games category from Jay is Games. ''Costume Quest'' was awarded the "Best Downloadable Game of the Year" at the 2010

Spike Video Game Awards The Spike Video Game Awards (in short VGAs, known as the VGX for the final show) was an annual award show hosted by American television network Spike from 2003 to 2013 that recognized the best computer and video games of the year. Produced by ...

and "PSN Game of the Year 2010" by PlayStation: The Official Magazine.

Filmography

*1998 ''

'', additional character designer, animator (Pixar) *1999 ''

Toy Story 2 ''Toy Story 2'' is a 1999 American computer-animated film produced by Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. The second installment in the Toy Story (franchise), ''Toy Story'' franchise and the sequel to ''Toy Story'' (1995), it wa ...

'', additional storyboard artist, animator (Pixar) *2000 '' For the Birds'', animator (Pixar) *2001 ''

Monsters, Inc. ''Monsters, Inc.'' (also known as ''Monsters, Incorporated'') is a 2001 American computer-animated Monster movie, monster comedy film produced by Pixar, Pixar Animation Studios for Walt Disney Pictures. Featuring the voices of John Goodman, B ...

'', animator (Pixar) *2003 ''

Finding Nemo ''Finding Nemo'' is a 2003 American computer-animated comedy-drama adventure film produced by Pixar Animation Studios and released by Walt Disney Pictures. Directed by Andrew Stanton with co-direction by Lee Unkrich, the screenplay was writ ...

'', animator (Pixar) *2006 ''

Cars A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport people instead of goods. The year 1886 is regarded as t ...

'', animator (Pixar)

Games

*2008 ''

'', artist, animator (Double Fine) *2009 ''

'', lead animator (Double Fine) *2010 ''

'', project leader (Double Fine) *2011 ''

Iron Brigade The Iron Brigade, also known as The Black Hats, Black Hat Brigade, Iron Brigade of the West, and originally King's Wisconsin Brigade was an infantry brigade in the Union Army of the Potomac during the American Civil War. Although it fought enti ...

'', additional animation (Double Fine) *2011 '' Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster'', additional art (Double Fine)

References

External links

* *
Tasha's Comic
at the personal blog of Tasha Sounart, Tasha's quest log {{DEFAULTSORT:Sounart, Tasha American animators American women animators American webcomic creators American storyboard artists American video game designers American video game directors Double Fine people Living people Women video game designers Year of birth missing (living people)