Mike Budai

After buying my first poster print from the Richard Goodall Gallery, I went back looking for more.. and again I spotted a series of posters by an artist whose work I had seen before but never made an y conscious effort to find out his name… the work of Mike Budai is similar to that of Jay Ryan as in they both use cutesy animal characters in some of their work but mainly as they both had draw their pieces and create more dynamic action packed scenes where something is happening rather than just a bog standard isolated character stood like a statue. At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I never thought hand drawn work would be so popular… I didn’t think that people appreciated it and always wanted the clean crisp polished look. The reason I picked up these prints by Budai is purely because of the characters within them… they have a huge appeal to my cartoon loving inner child because of their cutesiness but also the over the top and imaginative idea behind them such as the cute devil and his sacrifice, the bunny pilots, the moustached flying robot thing and finally the nightmare creatures.

the prints i own:

I’ve never had the confidence to draw out type either.. being so close to the work I often spot mistakes more and more.. often too easily and then I point them out which makes it worse.. but by doing as Ryan and Budai do.. the type then becomes part of the design and not just information that is a formality. The final thing that I love about these prints is that they are again screen printed... often meaning limited colours but also you have to consider the order in which you print too.. Normally the black line is the last thing to be added to design as it covers and misaligned sections etc but in particular.. the bunny pilots has a lighter yellow opaque ink added so that you can still see through to the detail underneath… thinking of this and even allowing/knowing that you can do this just makes the design stand out that little bit more in my opinion.. it shows a more careful consideration and understanding of the medium used. Also, I keep forgetting to add but the reason I enjoyed screen printing so much and why I enjoy using my hand drawn lines now (or seeing these techniques used by others) is because it allows for accidents to happen and sometimes these things help improve or give texture to the work so each one becomes a one off never to be recreated.

In the bunny pilots piece I actually love the use of a silver ink.. as it contains a silver fleck in it that actually reflects light when you catch it right… It just shows that I can use inks like this to achieve a different look with my work… in fact this is something I may try recreating for a limited run print which will be auctioned off later in a month or two.. I just need a solid idea first before I start this.