Frank Frazetta art that was inspiration for the movie

I tried to get the mood, the lightning and the feel. And there’s a couple of scenes that were absolutely dedicated in the movie to Frazetta. (Millius about Frank).



So I made a research to find wich exact Frazetta art could have been used as inspiration for the movie. This all resulted a littlebit subjective but I tried to be as much concrete as I could.



Let's go:




Original opening mountain scene:











Conan's Mother protecting her son:











The Witch




















The Snake











The Orgy Chamber























Kidnapping/Rescuing the Princess:











Combat against Rexor and Thorgrim (Orgy Chamber) - "Frazetta - Painting with Fire" documentary, quoted by Millius himself.













Conan (pre-Battle of the Mounds) - "Conan the barbarian" audiocomentary, quoted by Millius himself.











Stakes (Battle of the Mounds)











Subotai (Battle of the Mounds)











Conan (Battle of the Mounds)

















Valeria (Valkyrie)













Thulsa Doom (Battle of the Mounds)













The poster



















The art of this book appears in the "Conan unchained" documentary when speaking about Frank's inspiration for the movie.











The Barbarian







De Laurentiis tried to get Frazetta for the movie but Frank didn’t want to do anything, wich talks about the integrity of a true artist who can’t trust in film business as a good media to expose his work. He was used to do the things in his own and a producer or director who could tell him to do the things “that way” didn’t simply fit with his lonely wolf personality.





Can you blame him for that? No, in fact you can say it was an intelligent and cautious decision. But was Frazetta wrong? It’s true that Milliu’s Hyborian age is not Howard’s but I wonder how could not he like the film, once finished. Well.


German version by Renato Casaro.





Apparently Frank was offered the job of painting the movie poster but he answer “No, Dino, thanks” again. But he gave the rights to use “The barbarian” painting to be used as an alternate poster for the film.

Very interesting

But why include the two pics by John Buscema?

Also, some of the Frazetta artwork you used was done after the " Conan " movie, based on the copyright dates seen on the pics, so I guess those ones can't be considered as inspirational...

Yes, nice.

Ken Kelly also has a lotve nice pieces as well, he studied under Frazetta and worked on alotve of CONAN/R.E. Howard material during the 60's-80's among other fantasy art.

The Hun:



http://www.kenkellyart.com/maingallery/maingallery.html

Which art was painted after the movie? Oh, that's important and i didn't think about it

The two Buscema pics I included because... because... the first one is the complete "battle of the mounds" armor including shield and axe, just like in the Frazetta picture. Couldn't find any picture of the real movie with shield and axe.

The snake one, well I thought It fixed well because the image looks very close to the frazetta one.

and because I was drunk when I did this crap, I guess... can't really remember

glad you both liked it. I searched for ken Kelly too, yes, he was a huge student of Frazetta and I think his best work for Howard's stuff was the oldest ones ("Red Nails", "Black Circle", "Skull Head"...). "Chamber of Illusions" and "Roaring Fury" are superb I think. I also like his horror stuff. But it's not even close to Frazetta in talent, but who could be...

"The Hun" is nice, looks close to the Millius look.

Didn't took time to check the copyright dates, but here is a couple more:

Original opening mountain scene:
http://frankfrazetta.org/images/ffcolr64.jpg
http://www.conancompletist.com/img/photos/extraphotos/ritmonextra03.jpg

Conan's mother protecting her son:
http://frankfrazetta.org/images/ffcolr12.jpg
http://www.conancompletist.com/img/photos/A3/conanA304.jpg

The Witch:
http://frankfrazetta.org/images/frank_frazetta_catgirl.jpg
http://frankfrazetta.org/images/cg.jpg

Kidnapping/Rescuing the Princess:
http://frankfrazetta.org/images/frank_frazetta_bw_014.jpg
http://frankfrazetta.org/images/frank_frazetta_captiveprincess.jpg

Damn, photobucket is giving trouble uploading a high resolution of this book cover.

But here's the Wiki image: *Note it has the lion's heads on the arm rests of the throne, just like in the movie.



Its Bob Larkin's 1979 painting to Decamp's CONAN THE LIBERATOR novel which was released that year. Its very iconic and precedes the movie's release . See a lotve of influences, wonder if Larken helped out on the movie or vice versa in terms of design influences.

Interestingly that battle axe looks like the one Arnold uses in CONAN THE DESTROYER movie.

I edited the article, adding some pictures that are better adjusted with the original Frank's art. Also added a couple more influences.

And added the influences MightyMcT saw with his more than expert eyes. Thank you man.



I think now it's pretty complete. Do you like it?

Good dreams.

I don't see the connection between these two ?

Yep, Einar, i'll try to explain.

In the dvd audio commentary, Millius quote that image as "Frazetta-like". Not exactly that image, but one that appears one or two seconds before, Conan looking to the distance in the same posture.

I tried to find a Frazetta painting that could have been the inspiration for it, but couldn't really find anything but that one.

I took that one because: there's a warrior looking to the distance, there's the girl -the chained princess, in the movie image- and specially, THE COLORS AND THE LIGHTING.

I see what your saying, Turd. Subotai I think though that image more fits, as he saves the Princess with his bow in his hand.

Milius mentioned how he wanted winged Dinosaurs at some point, I think when he was transforming his mountain man(Half the sky) script into a Conan one. Stone's script featured some sorta winged bat-like vulture thing as well, which attacked at the Cimmerian camp. It was one of Doom's pets.

The Leopard was actually supposed to attack Brak/Rexor in the Orgy chamber, Brak/Rexor was to have battled it a bit and then snap its neck. But that version of Brak/Rexor was more Lou Ferrigno to the T, and who I think shouldve been in the movie.

Queen Taramis also used black panthers in her chamber in CONAN II.

Also look at William Stouts work for CONAN II, which is more clearly imitation frazetta; the bodies, weapons, poses and armor:

I can perfectly see the imitation of Frazetta by Stout for The Destroyer. It's pretty clear and interesting, I didn't thought about it. Also is that stuff you talk about the winged dinosaurs and the panther. It's really interesting

But i'm not that sure about the conan figure with the fire in the background. Maybe the composition yeah is very similar, but the characters and attitudes -an even the nature of the fires- have no conection so I think you can't really call that Frank's art "inspiration for the movie". Ther colours and lighting don't fit either, see, in Frank's art they are iluminated by the tribal fire, as conan lighted parts are no related to the fire of the background, but to some other unknowh light -maybe the moon, maybe some other fire candel.

They wanted many Frazettian poses and angles as possible.

Actualized again

Thanks to MightyMct and Cromulus fot the influence in Casaros'.


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Ok. This is the real image that Millius quotes as "Frank Frazetta like". I think he is saying that has a Frazetta "feeling" much more than saying it is directly inspired by a concrete artwork.

Anyway I have to post some artwork in order to illustrate the reference so we have 3 choices, and I ask you people to vote

Those 3 are the ones I have found more related to the image, wich one would you choose?





Number 1:

Similar composition, similar angle of the first character, similar scenary. This is my personal choice but there's a problem: he is about to fight, not relaxed-meditative. And I think that attitude would be important.



Number 2:

He is relaxed, watching, not about to fight like in the first one. He is meditative, thinking, like in the movie image. But obviously the composition and background is not related at all.



Number 3:

Here he is looking to the distance, we see his back. He is relaxed, watching, not about to fight like in the first one.




i'm listening to you

My vote: the first one (cause of the nekkid girl! ) but I still don't see the connection, sorry... For what it's worth, I don't even see it in the screenshot that protoplasme made! Milius must have been on crack when he said that... I don't think Frazetta was that much into thinking men sitting on rocks: see, yourself, you had troubles finding a pic that matched the thinking Conan from the movie... The main inspiration for this shot was Rodin's The Thinker (Le Penseur), and that's about it!

Lol



Sure he was high


Cromulus, where did you get that info about the winged dinosaurs? Because I think that could really be a huge Frazetta influence and should be listed.

This picture, reminds me of the Vanir raid on the Cimmerians. Also the beams of light seen through the trees in the movie.