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Dinosaur
Artist
William Stout |
| Dino
Stats (tm)
Name: A Date Born/ Age:B Length:1 Weight:7 Favorite Food: H Family: 1 Genus:L Species: H Place of Origin: P Habitat: S Favorite Movie: E Favorite TV Show: T Favorite Dinosaur: D Favorite Sport: B Exercise: P Hobbies: H Distinguishing Features: S William Stout Vera Velociraptor's Very Vast, Verbose, Voracious Vocabulary Students? Pay Attention! Be sure to check out that is to say, investigate, (humph), certain other useful pieces of terminology at the 7V-WOW Archives. |
William Stout Biographical Notes
Stout began his professional career in 1968 with the first issue cover of the pulp magazine 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 Playboy's "Little Annie Fanny" 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
"Buck Rogers" and 1978 saw the beginning of Stout's film career. Stout worked on nearly 30 feature films including the "Conan" films, "First Blood", "The Hitcher" and "Invaders From Mars". "Return of the Living Dead" made Stout the youngest production designer in film history. Stout wrote "The Warrior and the Sorceress" for Roger Corman and a dinosaur feature for Jim Henson. He production designed "Masters of the Universe" and was conceptual designer in 1990 for John McTiernan's "A Princess of Mars" film project. In 1995 William Stout became the key character designer for the Walt Disney full length computer animated feature "Dinosaur" (scheduled for release Memorial Day, 2000). He helped to design "Edgar", the key alien in "Men In Black", for ILM in 1996. In 1981 Bantam Books published Stout's landmark masterwork THE DINOSAURS-A Fantastic New View of a Lost Era. This book was followed by Ray Bradbury's Dinosaur Tales and The Little Blue Brontosaurus (recipient of the 1984 Children's Choice Award and the basis for Lucas and Spielberg's "The Land Before Time"). As a result of his work in paleontological reconstruction, 11 Stout paintings were selected for inclusion in the traveling exhibition "Dinosaurs Past and Present". This important group show depicted the history of paleoart. The exhibition broke all attendance records at each of its host museums. The six year tour included (among others) the British Museum, the Royal Ontario Museum, and the American Museum of Natural History. At the Smithsonian alone, over two million visitors saw this exhibition. Stout worked for Walt Disney Imagineering for a year and a half as a
conceptualist, designer, producer and planner for EuroDisneyland, Disneyland,
TokyoDisneyland and Walt Disney World. After leaving Disney Stout continued
themed entertainment conceptual design work, contributing ideas and designs
to a host of non-Disney (as well as Disney) projects. In
Stout undertook a voyage to Antarctica and Patagonia in January of 1989.
The profound spectacle of the "last continent" changed his life, leading
to a 45 painting one man show "Dinosaurs, Penguins and Whales-The Wildlife
of Antarctica" . This exhibition began its tour of the world's natural
history museums (Mikhail Gorbachev personally requested that the exhibition
travel to Moscow) at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
on January 19, 1991. This effort by Stout to alert and inform the public
consciousness
Stout was based for three months at McMurdo Station and Palmer Station. He made several dives beneath the ice, climbed Mount Erebus, camped out in the dry valleys and produced over 100 paintings and studies during that time as he carefully observed the white continent's rich abundance of life. Upon his return he drove over a thousand miles through central southern Chile, documenting the rare prehistoric forests found down there for his book on Antarctic life. In May, 1993, at the invitation of the National Science Foundation, Stout participated in the Boulder, Colorado gathering of all of the previous recipients of the Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, the first such gathering in history. April of 1993 saw the release of the "William Stout's Lost Worlds", the first of three trading card sets by Comic Images (to date, over 20 million William Stout trading cards have been sold). In the May/June issue of "Wildlife Art News", Stout became the first prehistoric wildlife painter to have a full color article devoted to his work. Michael Crichton acknowledged Stout's work as an inspiration for his book Jurassic Park. In 1993, Universal Cartoon Studios chose William Stout to design the prime time animated series of "Jurassic Park". That same year Stout was invited to become a member of the California Art Club, the oldest American art organization west of the Mississippi. A year later he became a member of their advisory board; he is currently a member of the executive board. Stout was unanimously voted the honor of being recognized as a C. A. C. Signature Member in 1997. From November, 1993 until April, 1994 William Stout researched and painted two large murals for the Houston Museum of Natural Science. The murals depict "Life Before The Dinosaurs"; they debuted to the public May 15, 1994. In 1994 Stout continued to do theme park attraction creation and design for MCA/Universal's Islands of Adventure; he also illustrated a series of covers for the "Cadillacs and Dinosaurs" comic books. In late 1995, Steven Spielberg chose Stout as his senior concept designer for GameWorks, a Sega, Universal and DreamWorks SKG joint project. For two years Stout and his team oversaw the concepts, design, and execution of the first GameWorks facilities. In 1997 Stout collaborated with Jean "Moebius" Giraud on a new "Arzach" story for the 20th anniversary issue of "Heavy Metal", and with Will Eisner on their Harvey Award winning new "Spirit" series. In late 1997/early 1998 Stout completed three Cretaceous murals and supervised two full-sized dinosaur sculptures for Walt Disney's Animal Kingdom. Stout began work in November, 1998 as the lead designer for the Wonderful World of Oz theme park due to open in Kansas in May, 2002 and concurrently in 1999 as a designer for the Michael Jackson NeverLand theme parks and a Dinotopia theme park for Toronto. The uckenthaler Cultural Center in Fullerton, CA hosted his 55 painting one man show "Dinosaurs, Penguins & Whales: William Stout's Antarctica" in October/November of 1999. William Stout currently resides in Pasadena, California with his wife
and two sons.
CURRENT PROJECTS Recently: circa March 2000 * I established my own official website: williamstout.com * I painted three murals for Walt Disney's Animal Kingdom and oversaw the sculpting of two life-size dinosaurs for them as well. * I've also written the chapter on Frank Frazetta's film and television advertising work for the new Frazetta book, Icon. * I painted three posters and a billboard for the McDonald's restaurant at Walt Disney's Animal Kingdom's DinoLand section. My current projects
include:
FEATURE FILM CREDITS PRODUCTION DESIGNER Theodore Rex - 1991-1992 (1st 9 mos.) d. Jonathan Betuel, New Line Cinema, $37 million budget A Princess of Mars - 1990 d. John McTiernan Hollywood/Cinergi, $120 million budget Masters of the Universe - 1986-1987 d. Gary Goddard Cannon Films, $25 million budget The Natural History Project - 1986 d. Jim Henson Warner Bros., $25 million budget The Return of the Living Dead -1984 d. Dan O'Bannon, Orion/Hemdale, $1.5 million budget Godzilla, King of the Monsters - 1982 d. Steve Miner 20th Century Fox, $25 million budget WRITER (WGAw)
OTHER FEATURE FILM WORK
SHORT FILM CREDITS WRITER Emerald City Airships - 1998 d. Gary Goddard Landmark Entertainment Story & screenplay (w/Gary Goddard); production designer. Group Co-writer/creator for this theme park simulator ride and its film. Look Out For Number One - 1979 Story & screenplay. Animated short made to promote inner city kids' U.S. Dept. of Health, condom use. Selected for presentation at Filmex. Education and Welfare DESIGNER
TELEVISION CREDITS WRITER GODZILLA (Television series) - 1998 Columbia/Tri-Star, Where Is Thy Sting? Teleplay PRODUCTION DESIGNER
OTHER TELEVISION WORK
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