The Silver Way: Techniques, Tips, and Tutorials for Effective Character Design

I have had the privilege of meeting Stephen Silver both at a convention years ago and again when I went to a 4 hour instructional he hosted when passing through my city. This book showcases his knowledge and breaks down character design and caricature in a wonderfully clear way that helps you improve your character design skills no matter what level you are at. For a professional level artist such as myself it has reminded me of techniques that I had either forgotten or let lapse on top of giving me new ways to think about my process. There are some tips and tricks I had never heard of that are truly great. For anyone interested in just straight caricature or character design for illustration and animation this is a must have for your studio.

As a professional illustrator, this is a MUST HAVE for artists. Definitely more specifically for character designers, but it does have a lot of lessons for general illustrators. I graduated college with very basic knowledge on character design. I saw that the great Stephen Silver was creating a book for it, and I instantly bought it. A couple of hours of reading and I already learned more about character design than what I learned in college. One of the most important things that I learned from this book is necessary communication through silhouette and shapes. These things will give your characters variety and will help them stand out from the rest. I'm still going through and trying to absorb all the knowledge that it has. Thank you Mr. Silver, I hope to meet you one day! You rock!

I have barely dipped my toes into this thick book and I already love it. And it is indeed thick, one of the thickest/biggest art instruction books I have the pleasure of owning. I was surprised by that to be honest, it is a much thicker book than I expected! There is so much fantastic and useful advice in this book, and it's presented in a nice orderly way with tons of great suggestions, tips, and exercises. It's not just a bunch of art with a little text. This book is truly instructional and it is impossible not to learn something from it. I only have ONE complaint and it's not about the content of the book or Mr. Silver's art, but instead it's about the shape of the book: it's quite wide and not tall. I saw the general shape before buying it, but when you combine the shape of the book with the thickness and overall weight, the wider-than-taller shape is both impractical to hold and also makes it difficult to fit in with the rest of the books on a shelf. I really really wish they had not designed the book this way, and I hope future editions will be a more standard shape. That said, if you are on the fence about this book, BUY IT! It is wonderful.

This books approach is very systematic in a way that will Organize your thoughts towards creating many different iterations of a harmonious character design. Very helpful tips and tricks to assist you when you feel as though you have exhausted your ideas to the fullest, only to see that there's other avenues and ways to go into many different routes in telling great stories through creative and appealing characters. In my honest opinion one of the most informative books on the subject out there. If you have Disney's the illusion of life. This book might be the perfect pair to study the art of animation.

Okay this is hard to say I love this book because I'm into characters making. you can't go wrong with this this is someone who may one of my favorite cartoons of all time which is Kim possible and that speaks highly and other cartoon shows from my childhood which is why I got the book just for that nostalgia alone I will say however this book teaches you how to think like a illustrator or a person who's making cartoons or for studios in general or for your own work as a freelancer but he's mostly talking and the more studio direction but the information he has in here is worth it even if you don't go in the direction of your traditional cartoonist or you become a manga artist or you become an illustrator or a game designer learning how to make your characters how to turn them how to use things around your environment to help you continue to grow there are exercises in here that you can do on a regular basis which I've already tried and have been doing I also will say to my beginner artist this is not a beginner book this is not a step by step how to draw cartoons this is not what this is he's already assuming you already know your fundamentals and he's just teaching you what he has learned over the years of doing what he's been doing in the industry passing his knowledge and this is what he put in his book I still think as a beginner artist if you're interested in learning how to make characters and you want to make that at your career or you want to do gaming or you want to do mangas or illustration this is still a good book to have it's still a good thing to have in your collection so when you get to the level that he's already at or where you can actually put this to use you already have in your collection I am a beginner artist so I really can't use the information yet but I've sat down and read it I'll put some of his exercises that are very easy to do into practice and I just let myself do it without getting a worry about mistakes or worrying about oh I can't do this because it's out of my level I just do it he has a lot of examples explains himself very well very easy to understand I haven't even got through half of the book it's a big book so I recommend this book to all artists in my opinion.

I have purchased a number of drawing books throughout the years, but while most books focus on technique alone, this book also provides considerable space to enhancing the transition from daily thinking about drawing to creating a daily drawing practice. I find this book incredibly inspiring and feel like I have my own personal drawing instructor at my side every time I open it. This book really stands out to me as something incredibly unique and valuable for learning/enhancing skills used in character design. It is the first drawing book I have purchased that made me stop reading and start drawing.

Knocked off a star because my copy of the book arrived dirty (since the book has a matte cover, it is more difficult to clean). I would have liked for there to have been more protection to avoid this issue. THE BOOK ITSELF: I really like this book! Stephen Silver is a master of character design and this book is invaluable to anyone with an interest in designing cartoon characters; or simply anyone who is passionate about this particular aspect of animation. Stephen Silver has been in the animation game for a long time, and his contributions to the animation industry are iconic (such as his work on Kim Possible and Danny Phantom). The book is very big length-wise which can make it difficult to store on a traditional bookshelf. It's about the dimension of a typical art-of-book, but without the hard-cover. Despite this, the binding seems strong. If you are on the fence about this purchase, I would get it! It is a great resource-material filled with lots of knowledge from a professional character designer.

I'm a professional Illustrator as well as an avid book reader and every time a new book on this topic comes out, I order it from Amazon and although there are a couple of good ones out there, Stephen Silver's is BY FAR the BEST of them all. Here you will find not just a wealth of information on sketching techniques, gestures and construction but also easy-to-follow exercises on every chapter. I have been familiar with Stephen's work for several years now and was excited to find out that this book was about to come out. Just take a look at the table of contents to get an idea of how complete it is! This work is for character designers what Tom Richmond's "Mad Art of Caricature" is to caricature artists. DON'T HESITATE TO ORDER IT!