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David Lyttleton’s angular work is instantly recognisable, with extensive work for most of the UK press including The Guardian, The Times, FT, The Independent, Time Out, NME and the sorely missed Neon.

Squidge Magazine: How did you get yourself started in illustration? Do you still find it difficult to get work or was there a point when it naturally started to come in?

David Lyttleton: I got started in illustration the usual way: made appointments to see magazines in the summer after I finished college, took my folder along, and got work straight away. First commission was for Elle magazine, the first published picture was in the Radio Times.   Moved to London soon after, more folder-showing and commission-getting, and that was that really.

SM: Has the commission/getting work process changed since you started?

DL: The main way commissioning has changed over the years for me is that almost no-one rings anymore. By that, I mean everyone e-mails. Which is fine.  If you want to look for new work, the old ways still apply… go to a massive WH Smith or Tesco and go through all the mags, seeing which has illustration, then write down the names of the art director and send them some stuff in the post. Also, Libraries have a lot of magazines you may not see in shops so that’s a good idea too. Go through illustration annuals and see what the illustrators in there did, and who for… it usually says who the client was. Google them, and send stuff along. Finding out who to approach on newspapers is still as frustratingly difficult as it ever was, as it’s impossible to find names to send to.

SM: What’s your general approach to a brief when you get work in?

DL: I don’t really have ‘an approach’ as such. But I always try to make sure there’s a person in there. I don’t think an illustration looks right if there’re no faces, strangely. And I never crop pictures if I can help it. It just doesn’t feel right! I always do complete bodies on people, no cropping.

And it probably goes without saying, but I’m always trying to get every line right, better than the previous thing I did. That’s always my favourite part, the pencil stage. It’s where there is clear progression, in the lines. That’s where it happens. After that, it’s a bit of painting for some almost-invisible-but-crucial tones then its Photoshop all the way.

SM: Tell us about your Guardian column…

DL: I’ve done a lot for the Guardian over the years, and the other papers. I’ve had regular weekly things on the Sunday Express and the FT too. A weekly spot is a Godsend. Especially in Credit Crunch Britain! I can’t overstate the peace of mind a contract allows. It’s a wonderful job to do, it’s a funny column. It’s quite a fast turnaround, about twenty-four hours (I’m waiting for the copy now as it happens). But when I did a TV review column some years ago, the copy came in the morning, and I had to have it in by the end of the day. That was scary. Never missed a deadline yet though!

So yes, a weekly column is different to the usual irregular ones. I have a few monthly regulars too, which are also most appreciated. But until recently I had several more. But the economy had its dicky-fit, and four, five maybe, all went at once. Not nice. Groan.

SM: You did a lot of work for Select and Neon during their later period in the 90’s, were you given free reign with those?  One that particularly sticks in my mind is one with Schwarzenegger and Stallone having a fight, with a bookie shouting “50 clams on the big kraut”.

DL: I’d forgotten about those magazines, all that stuff seems a lifetime ago.  Neon was quite short-lived, I think, and it wasn’t Select, it was ‘Vox’, a similar magazine that the NME people did. I did a lot for the NME, for years on end.  Until the format and everything changed.  I can’t quite remember what happened, but it sort of fizzled out. I can’t remember that illustration either, although it sounds like (writer) Ian Harrison’s sort of thing. He wrote a strip I did in Neon, he’s a great writer, uniquely funny. He works at Q now, I think.

SM: You worked on Kling Klang Klatch with Ian MacDonald.  What was that like to work on?  It sounds like it was fairly rushed.  Have you fancied working on any other graphic novels?

DL: That graphic novel was right at the start of my career more or less. I didn’t have that much of a fondness for comics really, but it was a great opportunity. But I had to re-invent the way I worked in order to do it, which was fine, but the deadline was horrific. I was doing two pages a day at the end, which seems impossible now. Last week I spent four hours just drawing the thin pencil lines for the Guardian column picture I do every week, trying to get it perfect ( to my eyes ). I think there were some good ideas in KKK, but apart from that, I haven’t got anything good to say about it. I never like looking back at old work if I can help it, and I haven’t looked at that for years. It’d depress me… shoddy, amateur and rushed. In fact, I think I chucked out all the artwork with the recycling some time ago. I did a bit of comics work after, here and there, but didn’t pursue it. Not really me.

SM: How did you find it making the leap from paintings to Photoshop?

DL: The transition from paint to Photoshop was a doddle, it didn’t happen in a contrived way. I got a Mac when I moved out of London for e-mailing stuff in to magazines, just scanning finished paintings in and sending them. Then of course, I started going over all the straight lines to crisp them up, then I started only half-doing paintings and finishing them in Photoshop when I thought of a way to miss out the fiddly airbrush colour stage, then bit by bit they got more and more digital.

But I still draw them out on A2 stretched boards, and do a little bit of sort of black and white tonal painting before I scan them in. I don’t want to ever get rid of that stage, it’s crucial. Especially the pencil drawing part, that’s like a signature I reckon. It’s where the work progresses, in the line, and the immediacy of hand/pencil/paper is crucial to that. I think the way I do the painted tone element too is an indispensable part, although it’s barely visible these days. It’s a funny painting technique that has evolved since college days. I prime the paper with a thin acrylic wash, then paint the whole thing with a mixture of three colours of gouache, and lift the not-waterproof gouache back off the waterproof acrylic with a wet brush to get light tones. Then it’s scanned in. It sounds pedantic too, but I can only use one type of paper, and one type of acrylic base. Others don’t work. Don’t know why I’m telling you all this, you didn’t ask, but I’ve typed it now!

SM: Just to clarify – you’re not the David Lyttleton that up pops in modelling listings for Beatrix Potter figurines are you?

DL: I’m not that David Lyttleton, no, but I know who you mean. Eerily, I’m from, and now live back in North Staffordshire where the Pottery industry is.. er, was.. so it’s a double co-incidence. Curious indeed