William Stout was born in Salt Lake City, Utah on the way to Los Angeles in 1949. At seventeen he won a full California State 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 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.
1977 saw Stout's first movie poster, WIZARDS. Stout ultimately worked on the advertising for over 120 films. 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.
Buck Rogers and 1978 saw the beginning of Stout's film career. Stout has worked on over 30 feature films including both 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 designed 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 (released in 2000). He designed "Edgar" (the big bug in Men In Black) for ILM in 1996. Stout recently completed the designs for The Muppets Wizard of Oz then designed Guillermo del Toro's new horror film, Pan's Labyrinth. His latest film work is for Christopher Nolan's new film, The Prestige. He is slated to work on del Toro's At The Mountains of Madness as well as the proposed John Carter of Mars film for Paramount.
In 1981 Bantam Books published Stout's landmark masterwork THE DINOSAURS-A Fantastic New View of a Lost Era (recently updated and republished as THE NEW DINOSAURS), followed by Ray Bradbury's Dinosaur Tales and The Little Blue Brontosaurus (1984 Children's Choice Award recipient and the basis for The Land Before Time animated feature).
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. The exhibition broke all attendance records at each host museum. 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 2,000,000 visitors saw this exhibition.
Beginning in 1987, Stout worked as a conceptualist, designer and producer for Walt Disney Imagineering. After leaving Disney Stout continued themed entertainment design work, contributing ideas and designs to many Disney and non-Disney projects. In 1991 Stout conceived and designed Z Z Top's Recycler tour.
Stout undertook a voyage to Antarctica and Patagonia in January of 1989. The profound spectacle of the "last continent" led to his 45 painting traveling one man show "Dinosaurs, Penguins and Whales-The Wildlife of Antarctica" . Stout was awarded the Antarctic Artists and Writers Program Grant by the National Science Foundation
For three months Stout was based at McMurdo Station and Palmer Station. He made several dives beneath the ice, climbed the active volcano Mt. Erebus, camped in the dry valleys. Upon his return he drove over 1000 miles through central southern Chile, documenting the rare prehistoric forests there for his book on Antarctic life.
1993 saw the release of the William Stout's Lost Worlds, the first of three trading card sets (to date, over 20 million William Stout trading cards have been sold).
Michael Crichton acknowledged Stout's work as an inspiration for his book Jurassic Park. From 1993 to 1994 William Stout researched and painted two murals for the Houston Museum of Natural Science depicting "Life Before The Dinosaurs".
In late 1995, Steven Spielberg chose Stout as his senior concept designer for GameWorks, a Sega/ Universal/DreamWorks SKG joint project.
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 1998/1999 as the lead designer for Kansas City's Wonderful World of Oz theme park.
Stout recently illustrated Abu & The 7 Marvels (Benjamin Franklin Award: Best Young Adult Book; Bram Stoker Award nominee; Chesley Award nominee; Gold and Silver Medals from the Society of Illustrators), Richard Matheson's first children's book. Stout's Tanagra Theatre poster art won the Silver Awards from both the Society of Illustrators and Spectrum in 2004. His cover for the August 2004 Cricket won a Silver Award from the Society of Illustrators as well. The Stout-illustratedbook The Emerald Wand of Oz was released in 2005; Trouble Under Oz came out in 2006. Stout's own publishing company, Terra Nova Press, has published 27 books on art and the history of art.
In 1993 Stout was invited into the California Art Club where he served as a member of their Executive Board; He is currently on their Advisory Board and is Managing Editor of the CAC Newsletter. Stout was unanimously voted the honor of being a Signature Member in 1997.
Stout is currently painting twelve large murals depicting the prehistoric life of San Diego for the San Diego Natural History Museum. The first seven murals debuted to the public in July 2006.
William Stout resides in Pasadena, California with his perfect wife and their two brilliant sons.
