I absolutely love Frazetta’s Barbarian painting! My take on it from the 1st time I saw the original painting on the paperbacks and into the revised version which is which we all come to love, Is that this scar was not from this conquest due to the lack of blood on wound, maybe even a recent wound that is not 100% healed and is still irritated.
I have 3 posters also of Frazetta’s Barbarian, The one that Frank and Ellie had for sale the cheapest one, the ARH one and a bigger textile fabric one, none of those matched the color or crispness of Frank’s Icon book, I thought those pics nailed it, even though I never saw the original, the book photos show the hair on his chest and torso and the red gems on the gold plates around his neck, so I really like the pics from the Icon book, in those pics the color in the wound seems to suggest scar tissue to me, this is one of those paintings that I have studied and come to know well.
Here are some pics from my collection, didn’t want to dig out the ARH one from my box, but as you will see the best pic is from the Icon book.
My Original poster from website.
Another huge textile poster that I had.
From My Frazetta Icon book, I like the colors and details on this.
Here is my Moore’s/Frazetta Conan that I remember painting the scar a kind of pinkish tongue gumm color.