Character design is something that has always fascinated me. It’s one of the first things I pick up on when I look at another artist’s work.

Yesterday afternoon I received two books that should appeal to folks interested in learning more about the realm of character design.

The first book on the list is “The Art of Silver” by Stephen Silver. Ever since I first discovered his work (via his Silvertoons website) a few years back, I’ve been a fan of Stephen.

The book clocks in at a whopping 160 pages in full-color. The book is in hard cover, and the paper quality is excellent. This is THE coffee table book for cartoonists or anyone who has an appreciation for character design. The book is not a “How To Draw” book - it never makes that claim - but I think an artist can glean a lot from the body of work that’s presented within.

Now, onto the contents:

What impresses me most about this book is Stephen’s dynamic range. His character design skills are, well, nothing short of AMAZING, but so are his skills in rendering caricatures and drawings from life.

The first few introductory pages of the book touch upon Stephen’s biography (he was born two days before me!) and how he got his start in the business. The book also provides a nice glimpse of Stephen’s earliest pieces of art. This section is meant to convince the reader of the fact that, yes, Stephen is mortal, just like the rest of us. Or maybe he just wants us to let us know that if we pursue our cartooning dreams with passion, we’ll get there, too. (Maybe)

Peppered between his gorgeous artwork are Stephen’s tips and insights into his design process. Many of the drawings list the media used to create the work. Having thumbed through the book, this much is clear: Stephen is not afraid to work with various media - whether it’s pencil, charcoal, digital inks, water color. He commands each tool like it was an extension of his hand.

I’m still picking my jaw off the ground. This book is GREAT, and well worth the $40 I spent. The only niggle I can find with the book is the binding - I’m a little concerned that it may come apart after I’ve flipped through it umpteen times.

I bought my copy via Amazon, but I wish I’d gotten mine from Stephen’s site instead - he will draw a little sketch in your book if you get it directly from him. Be sure to check out his other books (already on my wish list!) while you’re there.

I’ll make a write-up of the Mattessi book soon.

-Krishna

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 9:27 am and is filed under News, Plugs, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.