Book Review: Iain McCaig's Once Upon a Time in the Sketchbook

Kudos to publisher Design Studio Press for being able to get Iain McCaig to put out a sketchbook. The previous artbook Shadowline: The Art of Iain McCaig was published in 2008.

Iain McCaig is a sought-after artist and character designer in the entertainment industry. He has worked on films such as Star Wars, Terminator 2, Hook, Interview with the Vampire, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Charlotte's Web, Peter Pan, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Spiderwick Chronicles, John Carter of Mars, The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and The Jungle Book.

The reason I can think of for him not having more artbooks out is probably due to copyright reasons. Maybe he just can't publish the work that he has created for those movie studios. And this actually happens to many artists in the industry. They create so much awesome work behind the scenes, but they can't share them.

This 160-page hardcover artbook features personal sketches from Iain McCaig. While there are some fan art, e.g. for Star Wars or LOTR, most from what I can see are personal fun sketches.

You can tell very clearly from how he composes the scene and pose the characters that this guy has decades of experience with working with movies and animation. His designs and scenes have so much clarity, even if they are just sketches. There's a good amount of character designs, a few storyboards, some scenes and many random sketches.

The lines that he creates are so expressive, and the hatching lines look so lively. Even the sketches look so inspiring. This guy is so good.

It goes without saying that this is an artbook I can recommend easily. And if you like this book, be sure to check out artbooks from Peter de Sève, and other sketchbooks I've reviewed.

Here are direct links to the book:
Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk | Amazon.de | Amazon.fr | Amazon.it | Amazon.es | Amazon.com.au | Amazon.co.jp