My great influence has been Maurice Sendak, who drew 'Where the Wild Things Are.' His characters really interact with each other.

As a child, I had always wanted to know what lay at the end of a corridor or behind a door in a picture, so I did a floorplan and elevations of Angelina's house and learned my way around it. The idea was that children should start to feel at home in it.

Mice are very difficult to do front on, but they have nicely human little hands and feet, and whiskers and tails are great for expressing emotion.

If an actor only comes alive when he has lines to say, it doesn't work, and the same goes for illustrated characters.