I was flipping through art books, one in particular about Stanley Mouse. He had done album covers for The Grateful Dead among others. There was one picture that cough my attention. It was a skeleton family portrait. I don't know why but something clicked. I though "rabbit" family portrait. Suddenly I was interested in the contest and started making sketches of a family of anthropomorphic rabbit posing for a portraits. I couldn't get the look I wanted. I was drawing furry characters at the time, but only cats and dogs. Another inspiration hit as I was flipping through computer games magazines. The first Sam and Max game had just came out. The rabbit Max stood out to me.