William Stout is an American fantasy artist and illustrator with a specialization in paleontological art. He has also worked in comics and on dozens of feature films.
At seventeen Stout won a full scholarship to the Chouinard Art Institute (California Institute of the Arts) where he obtained his Bachelor's Degree. He began his professional career in 1968 with the cover for the first issue of Coven 13. In 1971 he began to assist Russ Manning on the Tarzan of the Apes Sunday & daily newspaper comic strips and Eisner Award-winning graphic novels. Stout joined Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder on Little Annie Fanny for Playboy in 1972. In 1973 Stout began his relationship with the Firesign Theatre and gained international notoriety for his 45 rock 'n' roll "bootleg" record album covers.
From 1976 to 1977 Stout was art director for the rock magazine Bomp! 1977 also saw Stout's first movie poster, Wizards Stout ultimately worked on the advertising for over 120 films including House and Monty Python’s Life of Brian. His first one man show, "The Prehistoric World of William Stout", was in 1977. He also was one of the first American contributors to Heavy Metal magazine.
In 1978 Stout did production design on his first film, Buck Rogers. Stout has worked on over 30 feature films, in a number of roles, including both Conan films, First Blood, The Hitcher, Return of the Living Dead, Masters of the Universe, Dinosaur, Pan’s Labyrinth, and Invaders From Mars.
In 1981 Bantam Books published THE DINOSAURS-A Fantastic New View of a Lost Era (recently republished as THE NEW DINOSAURS), followed by Ray Bradbury's Dinosaur Tales and The Little Blue Brontosaurus , the basis for The Land Before Time animated feature. In 2001, Stout illustrated Richard Matheson's first children's book, Abu & The 7 Marvels.
As a result of his paleontological reconstruction work, 11 Stout paintings were selected for inclusion in the traveling exhibition "Dinosaurs Past and Present", an important group show depicting the history of paleoart.
Beginning in 1987, Stout worked for Walt Disney Imagineering for a year and a half as a conceptualist, designer and producer for EuroDisneyland, Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland and Walt Disney World. After leaving Disney Stout continued themed entertainment design work, contributing ideas and designs to many Disney and non-Disney projects. In 1989 he was hired by Lucasfilm/Industrial Light and Magic as conceptualist and chief designer for their first foray into themed entertainment centers. In 1991 Stout conceived and designed Z Z Top's Recycler tour.
April of 1993 saw the release of the William Stout's Lost Worlds, the first of three trading card sets by Comic Images. Michael Crichton acknowledged Stout's work as an inspiration for his book Jurassic Park. In 1993, Universal Cartoon Studios chose Stout to design a prime time animated series of Jurassic Park.
Booth:
William Stout will be at Booth 1212
Panel:
Saturday at 2:00pm, Insight on Traditional Painting – Workshop Room A
