An Interview with Iain McCaig

A couple of months ago I was assigned to interview a professional illustrator. So I got in contact with Iain McCaig! Here is the interview, typed word for word from a audio recording on my phone interview. Fair note, this is my first formal interview.

Ejk: How much do you draw a day?

IM: Everyday. No matter what. Sometimes I'm traveling, some times I'm teaching but on an average, in the studio, Monday through Friday a good working day is 10 hours. If I'm in the studio, it's the working schedule. But I draw everyday, no matter what. No matter where I am. I'll make sure I have a pen and a pad and make sure I draw something. If you miss a day, you start to forget things. No one would really notices but you will. And then after a week your audience will notice. I've been sketching since I've been a little kid.

Ejk: Has this schedule been instilled since art school?

IM: No. I didn't do art until my final year of high school, and that was just so I can get into an art school. I was going to be a writer. I was studying to get into journalism or major in English at a university. Easily and happily would've gone in that direction. Drawing is something I always did. So I couldn't understand why you'd go and learn it.

Ejk: I understand, I'm someone who has always done music, that's something that has always been integral with me.

IM: Same here! What music do you play?

Ejk: I play violin, number one instrument since I've been fourteen.

IM: Fantastic Do you compose?

Ejk: I try. I went to a state school to audition as a music composition major. Didn't make it. But I had an art portfolio.

IM: Haha, Isn't it funny how you end up zooming down one path rather than the other. But I do write now. I write as much as I draw. I have a career now as a writer as much as an artist. People usually know me for one and not the other. To me, It's all story telling.I only do one thing, and that's story telling. No matter if it's concept art, or doing a book, radio play, or making a piece of music.
It's only there to tell a story. . . for what's it worth. I became a drummer when I was eight, I drummed in a bagpipe band. Which was real classical classical rudiment drumming. When I was in art school. I got a kit and I played in every band you could think of. Rock bands, jazz bands, punks bands, all the while, this was going on. My whole family was musical. I grew up with a Steinway baby grand in my living room and my dad, he was a fantastic piano player. That's when I'd really want to learn. So when he wasn't looking, I'd sneak over there and jam on it. And I got real good playing by ear. But that's not the same as really playing. So now one of my life goals is to really properly learn how to play the piano. It's so hard to learn to play twinkle twinkle little star, when you have to read the music, not when you can make up and play jazz on it.

Ejk: My whole violin career was based on playing by ear.

IM: That's amazing. Violin has that added thing of no frets and just learn the spaces and that has prompted a drawing thing I've been doing recently. I believe, if you knew the size of your piece of paper, you could learn to move across it the same way you could move across a violin, without frets. It's just practice. You learn the space. You learn to move your hand as much; if you were to move it to that note. So I'm working on two sheets of paper. One is a letter size and the other is a big paper pad size, one you'd have on an easel. One of these days, Im going to ask someone from the audience to blindfold me, and I'm going to do blindfold drawing. There's no reason why it wouldn't be a nice drawing.

Ejk: One of my professors told me that there was a study, when you learn to do something 26 times it becomes muscle memory.

IM: My wife has done marshal arts and I know a lot of people who have done that. And it's really about practicing those moves so slow that when you're in combat mode, it just happens without you thinking. And drawing too. That's why I try to draw everyday. It's just to keep programing that muscle, that side of me that draws. So that it's ready for when I need to do the other stuff. You only get that from practice. . . Technical day when Im working I try to get up by 8. Im in the studio by nine. I stop for lunch. Then I go until 8 or 9. I spend some family time and when everyone's in bed. I'll work from 11 til 2 or 4 in the morning on my personal stuff. I know that doesn't sound like much sleep but trust me 4 hours of happy satisfied sleep is much better than 8 hours of tossing and turning. There's no typical day, that's the rhythm I try to get into. Obviously if Im traveling it throws that off or if the deadlines aren't as pressing then they might slip a little. Its a good working hours to get into, those ones.

Ejk: How do you process your images? Do you think about it?

IM: I don’t process or think about images in a linear way. I've done it enough now, my gosh, since 1980 something. And what I try to do is perform it instead of think it. So you do your prep; the build your characters, your scene, sketches, whatever you need to understand what your about to draw. And then when I draw, I try to be that character. I try to be that scene that I'm drawing. And then perform there on paper. To the point, this is what prompted me to the blind drawing. I don't look where I am drawing. It's like driving. You move a steering wheel. You're shifting. Your eyes should be on the road. I draw like that. When you drive, you're not really thinking of keeping your car on that side of that road. You kind of know by now the width of your car, where it is, all that stuff. Everything is flying ahead, you're trying to fly that little car that's ahead of you. Drawing is like that to me, there comes a point when you can see the drawing in front of you, you just glide along the lines. So the prep helps you to get there. For something you don’t understand. I draw it out of my head first, even when it's a crappy drawing.

Ejk: Is this acting what engages the viewer?

IM: I think so, that's the difference, when you can tell the artist was really, really inside his drawing. As apposed to doing it from the outside. There's definitely something that has those drawings head and tails above somebody who just tries to execute nice rendering. I really, really don’t think too much when I'm drawing, I don’t think at all of rendering or style or anything like that. I've already made those decisions. You really when you get there you're on stage and just making a good performance.

Ejk: Just like music.

IM: Its exactly like music! It's funny if you're working in a studio as apposed to an illustration to yourself. When your drawings is a group of a whole peoples' presentations. It's exactly like a band. There's a time for your solo and then a time to you to come in for support. And this is the magic that comes with the band. That happens in a different way then when you're by yourself.

Ejk: Themes in your work?

IM: The secret of life to me is contrast. Anything or any area that pushes the contrast, tends to attract me more. Clashes of any opposite forces. Aggression versus passivity, beauty versus ugliness, light versus dark. Doesn't have to be moral themes. It can be very very simple. It can be you going outside and you notices, leaves which have turned versus leaves which are green and on the trees. Anything that has contrast can hold me. Then again if there isn’t any contrast and everything is playing at full volume, then it's just noise. When you've chosen the thing which your drawing is about, the contrast which you want to explore, then you got to rank the others and keep them playing well, so the other elements of the drawing can harmonize with the solo, which is whatever you've chosen.

Ejk: Seems mythic at a point.

IM: Haha, Isn’t that what makes mythic things? They're all around, its not something we invented, it's not magic. Or it is magic. Our world is magic. You just look. You open your eyes and look. You open your ears and hear. People ask me what do you do when you run out of inspiration? I can even begin to imagine a situation when you'd be out of inspiration! You go outside, or say inside, look at a mirror or whatever. You spend hours and hours trying to do this drawing. And getting your lighting right and getting the emotion in it right. You glance outside, you glance in a mirror, and there it is! Done! And it's perfect! Or perhaps oh, it moved an inch and its done again and it's even better! So If I ever really felt dried up I'd just go for a walk. I try not to think of anything, and I just look, listen, or smell. Appreciate how amazing the world is. And if I get a sketch pad with me and record as much of it as I can. Not meaning it to be anything, just as a profound appreciation for how amazing or magical the world is. Then you come back so charged. You can't wait to draw again.

Ejk- Has this creative energy been within you as a student?

IM: Ever since I was four years old. I thought dinosaurs were just astounding when I was a kid. Just because in the 60s, we got a lot of slap shapes and kind of naïve art for kids back then. I loathed that, when I was I kid. It wasn't what the world looked like! Why would you dumb it down for me? One thing you were allowed as a kid was pictures of dinosaurs. And they were amazing oil paintings and super real creatures and I loved them. I practiced when I was four drawing this brontosaurus over and over again. Until I could do that photographically perfect. Then I went to kindergarten next year, where I was suppose to draw a picture of mom. I drew the picture of the stick figure with the triangle. You were suppose to draw your house which was the picture of the box with the smoke. Then they said to draw your pet. We didn't have a pet so I drew my brontosaurus. Then the room went really quiet. I looked up and they're all gathered around my desk. The teacher was even there. I thought Shoot! I'm in trouble. Then the teacher went wow! Every week I learned to draw something new. Frankenstein's monster, Sean Connery. I didnt matter what I chose, just whatever fascinated me that week and I'd learn it, come in and show off. Pretty soon I stared putting more than one in a picture, and that's when I'd discovered visual story telling. Because as soon as two things are on a page together they have to relate to each other. Even if you don’t mean them too, they do to where you put them on the page. It might sound magical and something that I'd learn that people don’t know, but everybody does it. Everybody in the world does this.

Ejk: What's that, the storytelling?

IM: Yeah! Composition and putting juxtapositions of shapes next to each other. Think about every time you write. For a start, everything on the page, every mark you make is a mark, and you put other marks there to balance up the page and make it look nice. And some people write in a very specific way. Because that's them composing on a page. So many students will write to me and say “ Gosh what is my style? I'm looking for my style!” I just want to slap them and say "Look! Nobody taught you to change your letters! Did they?!" You were all taught the same alphabet and yet every single person writes differently and who taught you how to write that way? You did! That's your style. That's you without any planning, stamping your personality on the marks you make. So style and art are exactly the same. . .

Ejk: Key attributes an illustration should have?

IM: A story. Always have a story in there. There are different kinds of storytelling. Illustration can be a summing up of moments or a single moment in a story. Nice thing about an illustration is you can linger on it. A nice thing about a composition is you make the eye look here first then here

Ejk: Im curious on how you transitioned from being a student into a professional artist.

IM: I started at the glasgow school of art in scotland. I did the usual 4 year course. I did graphic design thinking, Thinking! They'd have an illustration course. But to my horror, I learned abstract shap . . .

This is when my recorder cut off. If memory (and my notes) serve me correct. Iain then said that graphic design taught him the things about layouts and graphical interfaces which he did not know. He knew all about drawing, creating beautiful composition and other visual dynamics. But there he learned about text and placement. All things which served him for his future in London. He told me he went to California one summer and decided to get a summer job. So he landed as lead character animator by showing up to a studio and animating on the spot for an hour. He then noticed if he did 2,000 images as an animator it would be a hour's worth of animation, but if he did 2000 images as an illustrator it would be a career!

He finished school moved to London. Did the Fantasy novels covers. While at a fantasy convention in California, Industrial Light and Magic were walking around recruiting people. They saw Iain's Peter Pan illustrations and they were working on Hook, so they hired him. Iain couldn’t believe the amount they'd pay him to work on this film. That's how he began to work in the movie business and that's how he got to work with Lucas film for 8 years developing Star Wars.

He's at a point in his career where the clients come to him.

Deadlines he says are a necessary evil. He often departs with work he must send away even though he feels he can still work on.

As an artist, he strives to create compelling stories.

Some common mistakes he sees beginning professionals do is master a previous artist's styles like a Syd Mead and just paint like Syd Mead. He mentioned when an artist does such a good job depicting a character or spaceship, etc. that artist's work by default becomes an invented archetype. For example, Giger's Alien.

Some trends that Iain notices in the industry is beautifully rendered digital paintings which don't necessarily function well. Another trend he noted was beginning concept and entertainment artists will have their ideas get shot down. Not necessarily because the art sucks, but because it doesn't fit the director's idea of the movie. He then emphasizes the importance of creating personal art along with production art.

A personal piece of advice he gives everybody was to burn a mile with which ever medium you work with, until you learn their attributes.

To learn a contract is to learn a very formal dance. Where one party is introduced, then the other, and then they join together in some union to adhere to specific movements, and so on. This dance is a very important one.

Some colleagues of Iain's have gasped at the rising plateau of digital artists, which they believe are producing an era of mediocre work. Iain says this mediocrity is great because being mediocre is one step away from creating powerful and meaningful work! He wishes to teach the new generation and the generations to come how to surpass this level of average into one beyond imagination.

Finally the future of illustration to Iain McCaig is percisely it's function; to inform and serve the story. This is what illustration has forever been and possibly what it will forever be.

Right now, Iain is writing, directing and producing films. He's also working on a follow up to Shadowline, and a some of children's books.

Thank you so very much Iain McCaig for your time.

Ever so grateful,

Eric J. Kerke

Here are some Images of Iain's Work.