Background
McCaig was born in Santa Monica, California, but spent most of his younger years in Victoria, Canada.
McCaig was born in Santa Monica, California, but spent most of his younger years in Victoria, Canada.
He later moved to Great Britain and attended the Glasgow School of Artist, but returned one summer to California work at Korty Films, where he contributed to Sesame Street cartoons and a trailer for the 1983 animated film Twice Upon a Time.
He was involved in the Star Wars franchise and many other iconic film and book projects, including an album cover for Jethro Tull"s "Broadsword and the Beast". Returning to the United Kingdom, he began a career as a freelance illustrator. His work there includes the cover for Jethro Tull"s (The Broadsword and the Beast) and cover and interior illustrations for Ian Livingstone"s "Fighting Fantasy" books
In 1990, he returned to California to work for Industrial Light and Magic and later for Lucasfilm.
In film, McCaig is best known for designing the Star Wars characters Padmé Amidala and Darth Maul and has contributed key designs to many of the films in the Star Wars franchise, including Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Among his other credits are Terminator 2, Hook, Interview with the Vampire, Bram Stoker"s Dracula, Charlotte"s Web, P. J. Hogan"s Peter Pan, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, The Spiderwick Chronicles, John Carter of Mars, The Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Disney"s live-action "The Jungle Book".
He was also Company-Producer and Concept Design Director on "Outlander. In October 2008, a book of McCaig"s work, Shadowline: The Art of Iain McCaig, was released.
The book is a combination of mini-art classes, an allegorical novella on McCaig"s creative process, and a retrospective of 28 years of his film and personal work.
McCaig has taught drawing and storytelling publicly and privately for most of his career. He is the author of four DVDs on Visual Storytelling and Concept Design for the Gnomon Workshop. In 2014, McCaig received the Spectrum Award for Grand Master.
McCaig"s daughter, Mishi is also a film artist, having contributed to Iron Manitoba, Outlander and John Carter of Mars, as well as producing her own short film work.
Iain and Mishi were both involved in the production of the Discovery Channel series Dinosaur Revolution.