Ron Cobb

Ron Cobb was an American cartoonist, concept artist, and production designer.

With no formal training in illustration, Cobb worked as an animation "inbetweener" for Disney Studios and progressed to become a breakdown artist on Sleeping Beauty (1959).

After serving in the Army in Vietnam, Cobb would go on to be a prolific designer, conceptualizing iconic creatures, vehicles, and landscapes in a number of significant major motion pictures.

Cobb brought several cantina creatures to life in Star Wars (1977), designed the Nostromo ship and collaborated with H.R. Giger to provide conceptual paintings for Alien (1979), was a production artist on Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), served as production designer and developed the weaponry for Conan the Barbarian (1982), conceptualized the homemade look of the Delorean time machine in Back to the Future (1985), and designed the earth colony complex in Aliens (1986), and the tanks and helmets in The Abyss (1989).

Cobb died September 21, 2020, in Sydney, Australia. He was 83.