Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa in the Rebel Hangar — Print & Oil Painting

Drawn first and coloured second: firm contour everywhere, hatched shading in the folds, and a thin wash laid inside the line rather than over it. The measured saturation is barely a sixth of full and it shows. Hull plating, decking, girders and coveralls are all carried in greys and cold blue-greys, and the picture holds its colour back for two things only.

Luke holds the left foreground in black, a camouflage poncho thrown back over one shoulder, his right arm raised and the black glove open at head height. It is a gesture of direction rather than of command. Leia stands at his shoulder in the same poncho over grey coveralls, a soft brimmed helmet with netting pulled low, a blaster riding on her hip and both hands loose at her sides. She is looking at us. He is looking past us.

The hangar behind them rewards a second pass. A heavy transport fills the upper left with its ramp down, and two figures lean out of the hatch above it: a man in a white shirt and open vest, and beside him a tall shaggy shape wearing a bandolier. Lower down, a gold protocol droid stands at the foot of the ramp next to a squat white and blue astromech. Along the right a file of soldiers in the same camouflage walks away from us with packs on, and an X-wing sits above them on a raised cradle with its S-foils closed.

Only two things are allowed any colour: the ponchos and the droid. Olive and moss green in the cloth, warm gold on the plating of the droid, and nothing else in a canvas otherwise made of graphite and steel. It keeps the eye travelling between the two figures in front and the small crowd working behind them.

The ponchos date the scene precisely. That is the kit drawn for the drop to the forest moon, the last operation this particular group ran together, and the picture catches the hour before it rather than the fight itself: gear on, ramp down, nobody moving yet. Part of our Star Wars collection, alongside the same man swinging his blade above a walker in that forest and Leia painted alone with a smoking blaster.