Concept Art & Design of Conan the Barbarian 1982

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William Stout's storyboard/comic-book artwork for the opening scenes to John Milius' Conan movie.

Part 1

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Part 2

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Part 3

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Part 4

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William Stout interview at Conan Completist.



conancompletist.com/EN/william_stout.html

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Ron Cobb Production Designer on CONAN THE BARBARIAN

roncobb.net/film.html


Some of Ron Cobb's concept work







 

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Conan by Ron Cobb





The Pit

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Some more Ron Cobb artwork.

King Conan





Atlantean Tomb

[KiramidHead]

Great stuff. 8)

[zarono]

 Never saw the comics or King Conan sketch before, super cool!

[valeriaspirit]

I have found myself craving a "Making of Conan the Barbarian" book, which would combine concept art with actual photos from the movie, which apparently doesn't exist. :-( Though there is a "Gallery" of concept art and photos included in the new (2011) BluRay disc, but it's not all that extensive. The above examples are stunning, and show how much effort was put into the film by Ron Cobb, as well as John Milius. (BTW, some people may be interested to know that Ron Cobb was given a brief cameo in the film as the "dealer" who hawks the black lotus to Conan and Subotai. John Milius also appeared as the seller of the "lizard on a stick" that Conan purchases and eats, but Milius said that he cut himself out of the film. (I seem to recall that his cameo is included in one of the deleted scenes on the BluRay disc.)

Anyway, the above wonderful illos will make up to some extent for the lack of a "Making of . . ." book!


Valeria Spirit

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Witch's Hut concept artwork by William Stout

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A little more of William Stout.


 

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Apr 14, 2016 17:45:49 GMT -5 valeriaspirit said:

I have found myself craving a "Making of Conan the Barbarian" book, which would combine concept art with actual photos from the movie, which apparently doesn't exist. :-( Though there is a "Gallery" of concept art and photos included in the new (2011) BluRay disc, but it's not all that extensive. The above examples are stunning, and show how much effort was put into the film by Ron Cobb, as well as John Milius. (BTW, some people may be interested to know that Ron Cobb was given a brief cameo in the film as the "dealer" who hawks the black lotus to Conan and Subotai. John Milius also appeared as the seller of the "lizard on a stick" that Conan purchases and eats, but Milius said that he cut himself out of the film. (I seem to recall that his cameo is included in one of the deleted scenes on the BluRay disc.)

Anyway, the above wonderful illos will make up to some extent for the lack of a "Making of . . ." book!


Valeria Spirit

A 'Making of Conan the Barbarian' book would have been great.

Here's William Stout's take on Valeria.

 

[valeriaspirit]

This is wonderful! I didn't know (or recall) anything about William Stout, but the storyboards are more dramatic than the attack on the village that appears in the film - both more dramatic and more violent!

I read the interview with Stout on the Conan Completist, and I was amused to find out that Jack Palance did audition for the movie - presumably to play the part of the Father, although Stout says he wanted to play Conan but was too old for the part of Conan. He notes that had Palance been younger, he would have been perfect for the part. And of course I agree!

I was looking at some of the other material on the Completist website. It's pretty cool, tho as they note, it's translated (mostly with the help of translation software) from French into English, so some of the English is a tad peculiar. Anyway, can't remember if it was Stout or elsewhere on the site that they mention that Sprague de Camp did a novelization of the film. I wasn't aware of that, and that made me wonder if Stout's tremendous story boards were ever published in comic book form. Perhaps not - apparently he ended up doing more production design work and consequently I think he stopped doing the story boards, which were apparently taking too long. But - a comic using his story board illos would have been amazing!

The thing that really caught my eye on the Completist website is a feature that reviews elements from the 1982 film in particular, and brief consideration of the elements from the later films, that are drawn from Howard's stories. That is nice to have in fairly concise and comprehensive form.

Valeria Spirit