Tasha Sounart

Tasha Sounart (née Wedeen, formerly Harris) is an American animator, artist, video game designer, and writer. She was the designer of Double Fine's adventure RPG Costume Quest.[1] She is currently an Associate Creative Director of Theme Parks at Pixar.

Tasha Sounart
Born
Tasha Wedeen
Occupation(s)Animator, artist, game designer, writer

Career

Tasha Sounart began her career as an animator on A Bug's Life at Pixar. She was an animator there for nine years,[2] before leaving Pixar for Double Fine Productions.

At Double Fine, she was the lead animator on Brütal Legend.[3] During the period of time when Brütal Legend was left with no publisher, the head of the Double Fine studio, Tim Schafer, 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".[4] Sounart pitched an idea that she had when she was at Pixar about a game centered on kids trick-or-treating on Halloween.[5] The prototype game, Costume Quest, was pitched to publishers, and THQ greenlit the game with a $2 million budget.[6]

Tasha Sounart has a webcomic called Tasha's Comic, which was created as part of Double Fine Comics. During the production of Brütal Legend, Double Fine's webmaster, Klint Honeychurch, created a flash game based on Tasha's Comic, called Tasha's Game with artwork and animation by Sounart.[7]

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.[8]

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.[9]

Tasha's Game was nominated for "Best of Casual Gameplay 2008" in the platform browser games category from Jay is Games.[10][11] Costume Quest was awarded the "Best Downloadable Game of the Year" at the 2010 Spike Video Game Awards[12] and "PSN Game of the Year 2010" by PlayStation: The Official Magazine.[13]

Filmography

Games

References
  1. Plante, Chris (August 10, 2010). "Exclusive First Look at Double Fine's New Game: Costume Quest". UGO. Archived from the original on August 16, 2010. Retrieved August 10, 2010.
  2. "TCAF (2011)/The Toronto Comics Art Festival/Tasha Harris". Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Retrieved February 28, 2012.
  3. Rudden, Dave (August 10, 2010). "Costume Quest preview from GamePro". GamePro. Archived from the original on November 2, 2010. Retrieved February 27, 2012.
  4. Parkin, Simon (July 15, 2010). "Develop: Double Fine's Schafer On 'Amnesia Fortnights' And The Pitfalls Of AAA". Gamasutra. Retrieved July 15, 2010.
  5. Nutt, Christaan (October 20, 2010). "Interview: Double Fine's Harris – From Pixar To Costume Quest". Gamasutra. Retrieved October 21, 2010.
  6. Klepek, Patrick (February 13, 2012). "$1.6 Million and Counting". Giant Bomb. Retrieved February 13, 2012.
  7. Mastrapa, Gus (August 11, 2010). "Next Up For Double Fine: Halloween RPG Costume Quest". Wired. Retrieved February 27, 2012.
  8. "TCAF (2012)/The Toronto Comics Art Festival/Tasha Harris". Toronto Comic Arts Festival. Retrieved February 28, 2012.
  9. "GDC 2011: Women in Gaming Awards". Edge. Retrieved February 28, 2012.
  10. "Show Tasha Your Love". The International House of Mojo. Retrieved February 25, 2012.
  11. "Best of Casual Gameplay 2008 – platform (browser games)". Jay is Games. Retrieved February 25, 2012.
  12. "Spike Video Game Awards 2010 Wrap-Up". 1UP.com. Archived from the original on July 24, 2012. Retrieved February 27, 2012.
  13. "PlayStation Game of the Year Awards". PlayStation: The Official Magazine. January 2011.
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