And what did you most enjoy working on?
What I really like are the small bits of information that I managed to find a home for. The Solskjær sticker, the Sheringham sticker – things like that, which almost acted as narrators for the whole thing. The fans as well; I like drawing people doing their thing. You’ve got Mr Singh at the back there, the lady losing the plot down at the front… stuff like that is nice.
And fortunately you didn’t have to draw them social-distancing.
That would have been terrible. I’d have rejected the brief immediately.
What are the tools of your trade?
Dead cheap paper. That way I’m not fretting about it being precious and putting pressure on myself to get it right. Instead I’m encouraging mistakes, because they can lead to happy accidents. I always use cheap gel pens too, for the same reason.
Do you have a specific drawing desk?
Nah, I just dot around. I used to have a studio space but I never used it. Wherever I am, I find it quite easy to have tunnel vision.
Do you listen to music while you’re working?
It’s a mix of stuff. I watch a lot of films, I have albums playing too, podcasts – but never all at the same time. Imagine!
Does watching a film ever distract you?
I guess I’m not looking up all the time, just soaking in the dialogue.
So you wouldn’t be able to watch anything with subtitles.
Exactly. And I couldn’t watch Drive, because there’s so little dialogue in there that you’d miss the whole film. “Ryan, what are you doing now?”
Do you look forward to seeing your illustrations in print, or does it make you nervous?
I never get worried about seeing it because my job, along with the art director, is spotting any problems early on. So when something comes through the post, there’s just a lot of happiness. Because so much of my work lives on screen, when I do see something in print I really enjoy it. Seeing it next to the text gives it more of a home. Actually, this is probably the happiest I’ve been about a piece of work that will be printed. That’s because there’s a lot of details in there, like the engravings of the logos on the champagne flutes. Those will be really nice things to spot on page, as opposed to pinching your screen and zooming in.
To read the article that Raj’s illustration accompanies, head HERE