In 1916-1918 V. Shcheglov attended the V.N. Levandovsky Studio in Kaluga. During 1920-1925 he was engaged as a propaganda poster artist. He counts to his name the well-known posters "Crush Denikin!", "All Arise to Defeat Wrangel!" In 1926 he took his courses at the Drawing School under the Leningrad Arts Advancement Society. Between 1927-1931 he contributed to "The Znaniye - Sila"( "The Knowledge is Power"), "The Smena" ("The Rising Generation"), "The Druzhnye Rebyata" ("The Comrade Boys"), "The Murzilka" magazines. He joined the staff of "The Detgiz" ("The Children's Literature State Publishing House") on the very day of its establishment in 1933 and remained there until the end of his life. In 1934 he completed a series of Donbass miners' portraits; those were later purchased by a coal mine owner from Argentina. In 1936 he paints "The Assault of the Winter Palace". By the end of the 1930s as an illustrator he contributed to the five volumes edition of "The History of the Civil War in the USSR".

V. Shcheglov is a well-known illustrator of Soviet literature classics such as A. Tolstoy, K. Paustovsky, A. Gaidar, K. Simonov and others. In 1964 he was awarded the title of an Honoured Artist of RSFSR. Beginning with 1926 he participated in numerous All-Union, Republic, Moscow and Leningrad exhibitions. His works are kept at the State Tretyakov's Gallery; the State Russian Museum; etc., as well in other museums and private collections of Russia and abroad.