Ron Cobb - The Hidden Icon of Sci-Fi Art
Ron Cobb was an artist born in Los Angeles, California but spent the majority of his life living and working in Sydney, Australia.
He is considered a pioneer in the fields of sci-fi art where he has done work in some very legendary Hollywood classics such as Star Wars, Back to the Future, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Alien among other things. While his design works for these seminal movies have been his most popular work, his original work is also very high-calibre, with him being able to render incredibly detailed characters and scenery in a very unique art style.
Another notable thing about some of his original works is that he even did digital and pixel art around the early 90s during pre-internet days.
Cobb got his start at 18 years of age working for Disney as an animations artist and even worked on Sleeping Beauty. Unfortunately though, he was laid off in 1958. He proceeded to work odd jobs and was even drafted to the Vietnam War in the 1960s. After that, he started freelancing and primarily did illustrations for underground newspapers at the time.
In 1972, he moved to Sydney, Australia and it was at this point where his career really blossomed. He did the concept art for Star Wars and even designed some of the alien creatures in the famous cantina scene along with other artists. His talents in the field of sci-fi design was continually tapped by the movie industry and he was even credited as a ‘DeLorean Time Travel Consultant’ in Back to the Future.
He unfortunately passed in September of 2020.
