I’ve been illustrating and doodling characters since before I was potty-trained. I was obsessed with Frankenstein and zombies, and I used to doodle characters to scare my little brother. Then I became obsessed with nudity and bosoms, and I doodled images to scare my parents. And now I’m obsessed with squashed animals. I doodled my way through an illustration degree course at Chelsea, and then I doodled my way through a 2D animation course at St Martins, and then a cartooning course and a storyboarding course.

There’s a pantheon of illustrators and animators stuffed in my cupboard. I remember when my dad bought me my first 2000AD comic. When I saw the illustrations from artists like Carlos Esquerra and Simon Bisley, http://simonbisleygallery.com, I immediately binned my Beanos. Then I discovered Gerald Scarfe and Ronald Searle. I loved their splotchy, scratchy illustrations.

I recently wrote and illustrated a fairytale. I took the sick world of Grimm’s fairytales as my inspiration. The characters I developed, I tried to invest with humanity, but also a bit of humour.

I started a job as an Art Director in an advertising agency. And it was like entering a sweet shop. I could pick from any illustrator I wanted. I discovered people like Dave McKean, http://mckean-art.co.uk, and Mark Ryden, http://www.markryden.com. Have a look at Mark Ryden’s carnivorous Alice and Wonderland illustration on the front cover of Hi Fructose volume 3.

From my 2D animation course, I learnt a lot about characterisation and expression. I was inspired by the work of golden oldies such as Milt Kahl and Richard Williams. And then subsequently I took a lot of inspiration for my Roadkill characters from the Ren and Stimpy Show. Their cartoon is stuffed full of bloodshot eyes and bulging veins and contorted expressions. To create a good cartoon character you need to invest it with humour, and Ren and Stimpy is about as funny as you can get. Here’s a befuddled alien character I animated recently.

Since starting on the road to Roadkill, I’ve been lapping up contemporary character design as influences for my Roadkill designs. I love James Jarvis’ work, http://www.amostoys.com He’s taken the mundane and turned it into the quirky. And I like Nathan Jurevicius for his surreal octopi and his steroid-pumped Heenie. And then there’s Pete Fowler with his dumpy Jogger and his Festival Ranger. http://www.monsterism.net

And hopefully some day, somewhere, someone out there will quote Twitch and his bashed-up buddies as their inspiration.