Wayne Douglas Barlowe

Wayne Douglas Barlowe is one of my favorite visual artists. He paints aliens from science fiction stories, creatures from fantasy, and creatures entirely his own. He painted the most accurate representations I have ever seen of Larry Niven's Puppeteer and Thrint, and has done the same for many other famous critters.

Barlowe's early book, the famous Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials, won an award and is considered the source of definitive illustrations of the aliens within.

He has since released a sequel, Barlowe's Guide to Fantasy, which does the same for famous creatures from fantasy stories. I can't vouch for the accuracy of this one since I don't read fantasy.

My favorite of the Barlowe books in my collection is Expedition, which is a short science fiction story illustrated AND written by him. It tells the story of an artist on an exploratory mission to the low-gravity world of Darwin IV, a planet populated with some fascinating lifeforms.

Another early book of Barlowe's is An Alphabet of Dinosaurs, which contains paintings of dinosaurs. A good book for children and dinosaur fanatics.

After Expedition, Barlowe released two more major books. The first is entitled The Alien Life of Wayne Barlowe, which I have recently obtained. It's an overview of all his work to date, with background info and discussion. Some tantalizing hints of things to come too - possibly a second Expedition.

The second book is Barlowe's Inferno which describes in words and pictures his vision of Hell. It's very evocative, and not what you might expect. The first Barlowe wall poster I have seen came from this work. I understand there is a followup to Inferno out, but I have not yet seen it.

There are two screen savers available using Barlowe artwork. One uses some of his dinosaur art, and the other uses some of his alien art.

There have been rumors of Barlowe involvement in feature films, but nothing has come of them yet. Apparently the creature design in Pitch Black was either done by Barlowe or heavily influenced by him. Barlowe wasn't credited in Pitch Black, so it was probably just an influence. Wayne does have several other film credits though, and you can be sure I'll have watched them all.

I really want to see Expedition get made into a movie. It's a perfect opportunity to showcase the latest in photorealistic computer graphics.

Barlowe Creations

Barlowe's paintings are too numerous to discuss. This part lists publications in which his images have been collected. He's also exhibited at some art galleries, and some of his works can be purchased through the Morpheus International gallery. More detail can be read in The Alien Life of Wayne Barlowe.

1978 Book:: The Pop-Up Book of Star Wars.
1979 Book:: Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials.
1979:: Gallery section in Heavy Metal magazine.
1981:: Portfolio in Future magazine.
1983:: Designed Powerlords toy line.
1985 Calendar:: Universal Seasons.
1990 Book:: Expedition.
1992:: Portfolio in Science Fiction Age.
1994 Trading cards:: The Alien Life of Wayne Barlowe.
1995 Book:: The Alien Life of Wayne Barlowe.
1995 Book:: An Alphabet of Dinosaurs (written by Peter Dodson).
1996 Book:: Barlowe's Guide to Fantasy.
1996 Book:: With Horns on Their Faces (written by Peter Dodson).
1997:: Designed creature, artifact and alien city for Babylon 5 movie Thirdspace.
1998 Book:: Barlowe's Inferno.
1999 Book Covers:: The Ecologic Envoy and The Forever Hero, both by L.E. Modesitt Jr.
1999:: Concept artist for Galaxy Quest.
2000:: Character designer for Titan A.E.
2002:: Head creature designer for Blade 2.
2003:: Concept artist for Hellboy.

I used to have a section here on Barlowe web resources, but they were far too ephemeral to keep track of. You're better off just to plug his name into Google and see what you get.

Update as of April 10, 2005: There appears to be an official Wayne Barlowe website under construction at http://www.waynebarlowe.com/.

Update as of May 22, 2005: Great news! Not only does Barlowe's website have content up now, but the Discovery Channel has produced a computer-animated adaptation of Expedition! It's called Alien Planet (warning: broken Flash-heavy website) and first aired on May 14. It's great. It only covers about half the creatures from Expedition and completely rewrites the story, but it's still wonderful to see Barlowe's creatures come to life. I highly recommend watching it and buying the DVD.

Update as of January 1, 2007: Barlowe's official site says he has submitted another book in his hell series to the publisher. Amazon.ca lists the release date as October 2007.

You are at Soleil's home page Index -> Creative -> Barlowe.