Book Review: Shadowline: The Art of Iain McCaig

Iain McCaig (wikipedia link) has been in the art industry doing work for movie studios for a long time. In this book contains illustrations created for Star Wars prequel, Harry Potter and his concept art for other projects. Most of his work are belong to the fantasy genre.

In this book, a fictional interviewer called Bryon is created to introduce readers to the artwork and bring them into Iain McCaig's imaginative world. It's pretty amusing and reads like some fantasy adventure. My minor quibble would be that there isn't a biography of his illustrious career.

Insight Editions is the publisher of this thick and big book at 240 pages. It's hardcover with a beautiful matte dust jacket.

Inside are lots of glorious concept art, mainly to character designs. They are made up of paintings and sketches. Each is reproduced brilliantly on the glossy paper, showing intricate details of ink, pencil or colour strokes as well as the texture of the medium. The large pages enhance the viewing pleasure.

While there are some digital paintings, most of the illustrations featured are done using traditional medium, showing texture and grain.

This book is highly recommended to fans of Iain McCaig, fantasy artists, concept artists and character designers. It's very inspiring and overflows with creativity.

Special thanks to Kelvin Chan for providing the book for this short review.

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