Percival was a high school teacher before enlisting with the AIF in October 1915. He contributed cartoons to the wartime Aussie while on active service and had a cartoon published in London Punch while working as an artist in the Australian War Records Section in London.

Taking over from Norman Lindsay as principal cartoonist on the Bulletin in August 1924, he worked as a cartoonist and illustrator for The Bulletin and The Australian Woman's Mirror through the twenties and thirties.

In the forties, Percival illustrated children’s books with rather crude drawings mainly for Currawong. He also painted and drew covers for Currawong Publications' pulp novelettes in the forties, although most were unsigned.