Editing Conan the Barbarian (section)

==Appearance (Original Portrayals)==
Conan has "sullen blue eyes" and a black "square-cut mane". Howard once describes him as having a hairy chest and, while comic book interpretations often portray Conan as wearing a loincloth or other minimalist clothing, Howard describes the character as wearing whatever garb is typical for the land and culture in which Conan finds himself (he gets knocked out and stripped of it with surprising frequency though!). Though Howard never gave a strict height or weight for Conan in a story, only describing him in loose terms like "giant" and "massive", he did once state that Conan and another of Howard's characters, the crusader Cormac Fitzgeoffrey, were "physical doubles" at 6'2" and 210 lb (188 cm and 95 kg, a description of Howard's own height and weight). In the tales no human is ever described as stronger than Conan, although several are mentioned as taller (such as the strangler Baal-pteor) or of larger bulk. In a letter to P. Schuyler Miller and John D. Clark in 1936 only three months before Howard's death, Conan is described as standing 6 feet and weighing 180 pounds when he takes part in an attack on Venarium only 15 years old, though being far from fully grown. Although Conan is muscular, Howard frequently compares his agility and way of moving to that of a panther (see for instance "Jewels of Gwahlur," "Beyond the Black River" or "Rogues in the House"). His skin is frequently characterized as bronzed from constant exposure to the sun. In his younger years, he is often depicted wearing a light chain shirt and a horned helmet, though appearances vary with different artists.

During his reign as king of Aquilonia, Conan was "... a tall man, mightily shouldered and deep of chest, with a massive corded neck and heavily muscled limbs. He was clad in silk and velvet, with the royal lions of Aquilonia worked in gold upon his rich jupon, and the crown of Aquilonia shone on his square-cut black mane; but the great sword at his side seemed more natural to him than the regal accoutrements. His brow was low and broad, his eyes a volcanic blue that smoldered as if with some inner fire. His dark, scarred, almost sinister face was that of a fighting-man, and his velvet garments could not conceal the hard, dangerous lines of his limbs."

Howard imagined the Cimmerians as a proto-Celtic people with mostly black hair, tanned skin, and blue or grey eyes. Ethnically, the Cimmerians to which Conan belongs are descendants of the Atlanteans, though they do not remember their ancestry. In his fictional historical essay The Hyborian Age, Howard describes how the people of Atlantis — the land where his character King Kull originated — had to move east after a great cataclysm changed the face of the world and sank their island, settling where northern Ireland and Scotland would eventually be located. In the same work, Howard also described how the Cimmerians eventually moved south and east after the age of Conan (presumably in the vicinity of the Black Sea, where the historical Cimmerians dwelt).

Later readers had it in their heads that Conan was some sort of Teuton; hence the Ahnuld casting. Recent genetic research has found that the Europeans just prior to the Neolithic invasions had... black hair, dark skin, and blue eyes. Howard, that mad lad, may have been a prophet.