While Steve Purcell was responsible for the character close-ups in the original EGA version of The Secret of Monkey Island, it's long been unclear who was responsible for their beautiful VGA counterparts.
In an uncharacteristic bit of investigative journalism, the International House of Mojo can now reveal the person behind them was the incredibly talented concept artist, Iain McCaig.
You'll have seen McCaig's work in a ton of Hollywood blockbusters, from Terminator 2, the Star Wars prequels, Hook, and Harry Potter, through to The Force Awakens, Guardians of the Galaxy, and most recently, Avengers: Infinity War.
But before he became the king of the Hollywood concept artists, he was helping out at a small games company in San Rafael while he waited on a job offer.
As he explains exclusively to our readers:
I’d just moved back from the UK to the US, and was working at Lucasfilm Games for a few months while I waited for Industrial Light and Magic to make good on their offer to hire me. While I was there, I got to meet Steve Purcell and Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert and many other greats of the early games industry. I also met my first computer—a PC running an early version of DOS—insanely clunky compared to today.
Coming from an illustration background, he had to quickly adapt to the limitations of video games in 1990. As he recalls:
Re-doing these portraits was my first assignment. Everyone was super excited by the new 256 color palette (they formerly had 16), but it seemed barbaric to me compared to the virtually unlimited palette I’d been using as a traditional illustrator. To compensate, I painted with pixel dots of complementary color next to each other which creates a visual blending in the eye of the viewer, a trick the Impressionists exploited to great effect in their paintings.
And the technology he had at his disposal? Less then you may have expected:
It’s hard to believe today, but I actually painted these with a mouse. Yep, a MOUSE. Wacom tablets were not a thing yet. Using a mouse was about as precise as painting with a bar of soap, yet here they are—complete with tiny highlights in the eyes. Just shows what you can do when you don’t know any better.
I also got to ask him about LFG staff members being used as models in the VGA close-ups, including the rumour that fellow artist, Avril Harrison, was the basis for Elaine Marley:
As for models, I did look at my colleagues for inspiration—Avril among them—but none of them were meant to be straight portraits. I was really just trying to bring Steve’s wonderful characters to glorious 256 color life, and kill some time while I waited to go off and work on Terminator 2.
And finally, with the VGA version of the game coming with more disk capacity, was there ever talk of bringing Spiffy to The Scumm Bar?
Alas, I do not recall ever illustrating Spiffy the Dog. I like the original image though—it would have been fun to try and re-imagine him realistically without losing his cartoon charm (that was my challenge with all the other characters too).
So there you have it. The very gracious and talented Iain McCaig taking the time out to give Mojo readers something to read in these quiet times. Thanks, Iain!
Be sure to check out his stunning work on his personal blog, too.
Special thanks to Steve Purcell for pointing me in Iain's direction.
By Johnny "ThunderPeel2001" Walker, who looks better in VGA
As a bonus, enjoy this gallery of Steve Purcell and Iain McCaig's artwork, side-by-side, er, on top of each other.
And let's not mention that I forgot the close-up of the navigator's head