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Stephen Silver uses his creative gifts to fulfill his dreams and help others.
Stephen Silver, the main character designer, has created characters for shows like this one Hysteria, Kim Possible, Danny Phantom and the most iconic cartoon characters in TV history. He is also the author of the character design book “The Silver Path” and the host of the Art Talk show.
Silver’s artistic journey began at the age of 6 when he surprisingly discovered an artist’s sketchbook that had been placed in his backyard. Stefano would draw and describe the art he found in the book.
Born and raised in London to Jeanne and John Silver, Stephen is one of 5 siblings. He and his family were very involved in the Jewish community. At the age of 10, the family moved to San Diego, California to provide more opportunities and a better life for their children. In San Diego, meeting other Jews was rare.
An artist’s sketchbook is found in Stefano’s backyard
During elementary school and high school, there were no Jews in his class and even the non-Jews were fiercely against him and bullied others. From that time forward, Stephen decided not to identify as Jewish and hid this Jewishness from his peers.
His parents were always very encouraging and supportive of their son’s passion for art. As proud Jewish parents, they had strong hopes that Stephen would fulfill what he refers to as the 11th commandment: “He shall go to College”. As a high school graduate, his parents took him to Las Vegas to stay at the Excalibur hotel casino where Stephen discovered a group of caricature artists. Stefano spent the entire trip looking at these artists who portrayed different types of people. He convinced them to sell him a caricature textbook for $7.
To make his parents happy, Stephen attended Palomar junior college which had a small arts program. In his entire life, he could never pay attention in a classroom for more than a few minutes. Stephen said: “The only thing in life that really interested me was when I picked up a pencil and paper. I’ve been shutting everything out and feeling these creative juices flowing. I feel like I’m looking at something beyond myself. “
It was clear to Stefano that the school and him did not mix so he dropped out of college, a decision that did not sit well with his parents. They lovingly explained to Stephen: “If you drop out of school, we will always love you, but we will no longer support you financially.”
Stefano faced that challenge and left home. “I never looked at failure as something I equated with. Failure was always a stepping stone to something else. I didn’t have a Plan B. From now on, I’m going to be an artist. My mother says I had chutzpah.”
The first job he got was at Sea World drawing caricatures. This eventually led him to do private parties, bar/bat mitzvahs, live events, and through networking he landed a job as a designer for sneaker and clothing company AWESOME which became popular in the ’90s.
The early days of Stefano’s caricature career
The boom in the animation industry in 1996 was largely attributed to the success of Disney’s The Lion King. Soon after, Stephen applied to work as a designer for Disney. In those pre-Internet days, he put together a physical portfolio and personally drove it to an artist he met at an artist meeting in San Diego who worked at Warner Brothers Television Animation. The artist was so impressed by Stefano’s work that he brought his portfolio to director Bob Doucette of the Hysteria show. He decided to hire Stefano.
After Hysteria ended, Stephen applied to Disney Television Animation for the animated series Clerks with Kevin Smith. Stephen was given a job. Stephen got a call about an opportunity to work with Warner Brothers Television Animation – it was like an opportunity to play in major league baseball.
Stephen was torn. Ultimately he decided to put his dream of working on a Disney Feature on hold and stay true to The Clerk and finish what he started.
Toys designed by Stephen Silver and Kevin Smith.
Chris Bailey, the director of Clerks, remembered Stephen’s loyalty, offering him a role in a new show from Disney featuring a female protagonist who would eventually become Kim Possible. They briefed the main character, Kim, asking her to predict future clothing styles.
Stefano remembered the unique style of Israeli clothing that had an almost timeless feel that he had seen on his first trip to Israel in 1995. would later become the perfect inspiration for Kim Possible.
Kim is possible
Arriving in Israel for the first time, Stephen felt a spiritual connection that he couldn’t even explain, “It’s like I’m coming home to my people. Something in me had been dormant for what seemed like an eternity, suddenly it woke up with a force that made me very proud to be a Jew.”
After living in the kibbutz for a month, he and his older brother turned to the streets and neighborhoods of Jerusalem. A friendly Chabad Rabbi they met invited them to a Shabbat dinner at the home of one of Jerusalem’s leading rabbis at the time. Stephen recalls that the Shabbat experience was filled with wonderful food, joyful singing, words of Torah mixed with deep philosophical discussions.
Thinking about this, he was able to define being a Jew for himself as a feeling of belonging to other Jews and that all Jews, no matter how different they are, are all part of the same family. This feeling added a new dimension to his feeling connected to the many Jewish artists he admired growing up: Jack Kirby, Al Herschfeld, Mort Drucker, Joe Shuster, and Joe Kubert.
With his feelings of shame about being a Jew, Stephen began to take pride in being a Jew. He married a Jewish woman and together they instilled Jewish pride in his children.
After Stefano’s career has been successful working on many big name projects and big studios like A Cloud of Chance Meatballs, The Penguins of Madagascar, Scooby-Doo! And SpongeBob SquarePants, an animation academy in Burbank reached out to Stephen asking if he would be willing to teach a class on character design. He was reluctant to teach, but Stephen cleared that up and found that his challenges in learning his craft gave him the knowledge to teach others. He eventually developed his curriculum into a book, “The Silver Way”.
Stephen in Israel doing workshops for aspiring Israeli artists
Stephen says, “I was given these tools from God to build my house. Now that I have built my house – my job, my family, the things I wanted to achieve – I feel it is my responsibility to pass on these tools to other people so they can build their own houses and achieve their dreams.”
Visit Stephen’s website at SilverdrawingAcademy.com
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