Articles

Revealed! Iain McCaig, the man behind the Monkey Island VGA portraits 17 Mar, 2019 / 11 comments

We exclusively reveal the artist behind The Secret of Monkey Island's VGA close-ups, and get some fascinating behind-the-scenes tidbits, in this brand new feature. Yes, that's right, brand new feature!

Go and read and enjoy!

Mojo: Still alive and kicking.

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11 Comments

  • Avatar
    ThunderPeel2001 on 13 Apr, 2019, 15:18…

    LRSVDR

    And here I thought the fact that Iain McCaig did these portraits was common knowledge.

    In 2013 he signed some prints of these for me and he said that the "Murderous Winged Devil reaction portrait" was his first digital painting ever.

    He also told me that the Navigator's Head was NOT his work.
    Now finding THAT artist would be a journalistic coup!



    That's interesting! I did think the style of that close-up was different to the others. I wonder who was responsible.

    I love McCaig's style so much. For me the VGA portraits are easily the best out of the two (although I love Purcell's work elsewhere).
  • Avatar
    LRSVDR on 11 Apr, 2019, 12:47…
    And here I thought the fact that Iain McCaig did these portraits was common knowledge.

    In 2013 he signed some prints of these for me and he said that the "Murderous Winged Devil reaction portrait" was his first digital painting ever.

    He also told me that the Navigator's Head was NOT his work.
    Now finding THAT artist would be a journalistic coup!
  • Avatar
    Melancholick on 22 Mar, 2019, 18:58…
    Brilliant. And might I add...

    "Aye."
  • Avatar
    Scummbuddy on 20 Mar, 2019, 01:27…
    Oh, this was a fantastic surprise of an article. I love it!
    I still want a comprehensive article on the mystery book that was apparently published "The Scumm Of The Earth" by Scott Marley, but no one I've talked to knows anything about it. I forgot to ask Ron at PAX East some years back.
    https://www.amazon.com/Lucasarts-Adventure-Game-Book-Scumm/dp/1559582588/
  • Avatar
    Javier Tolstoi on 19 Mar, 2019, 22:01…
    The VGA art is really nice, but I kind of never liked a certain aspect of it, which is the un-uniquity of the characters. They just look like your everyday standard human while the Purcell art really had characteristic and expressive faces.
    I find that to be especially annoying for the final cut (not the Pink Floyd album, but the screen where watch the fireworks). Guybrush and Elaine look like some random replacable models and you can't really see their personalities and inner shiiine.
    But I still appreciate his art and it is part of the game and how we love it.
  • Avatar
    bgbennyboy on 18 Mar, 2019, 21:58…
    Great article!
  • Avatar
    Remi on 18 Mar, 2019, 14:09…
    I can understand why Ron felt those VGA closeups might have seemed wrong, stylistically compared to the rest of the game, but I always loved them. Great read; good job, TP!
  • Avatar
    Kroms on 18 Mar, 2019, 10:18…

    ThunderPeel2001

    What's amazing to me is how closely tied the EGA and VGA versions were. Lots of little details are identical across both.


    Absolutely. Great feature!

  • Avatar
    elTee on 17 Mar, 2019, 20:26…
    This is very cool!
  • Avatar
    ThunderPeel2001 on 17 Mar, 2019, 19:44…
    What's amazing to me is how closely tied the EGA and VGA versions were. Lots of little details are identical across both.
  • Avatar
    Kroms on 17 Mar, 2019, 19:37…
    I refuse to believe that those portraits of Cobb, Carla, Elaine, and surprised Guybrush were done with a mouse. I refuse.

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