X-Wings Escort the Millennium Falcon Above a Blue Planet — Print & Oil Painting

The freighter is holding the centre of a wide canvas, seen from above and slightly ahead, banking over a blue and white world that fills the entire lower half of the frame. Three escorts fly with her, one off to the left and further back and two close on the right, each with the wings split open and a magenta-pink glow at the drives.

The detail on the hull is the reason to stop. The upper deck is a dense mosaic of plating, ducts, hatches and the raised dish, and the whole rim of the saucer is lit from underneath by a continuous band of hard cyan, which is the coldest and cleanest colour in the picture.

She is also on fire. On the right side of the hull, just behind the mandible, the plating has been opened and orange flame is streaming back from it with a black tail of smoke trailing off toward the lower edge. The artist has placed that damage almost exactly opposite the cyan rim light, so the two temperatures sit on the same object a few metres apart.

Around all this the space is treated generously: a rust-orange cloud burns at the upper left, stars are scattered thinly, and the planet's atmosphere is lit along its limb in a thin pale arc. The formation is tight and nobody is shooting. This is an escort bringing something damaged home, and the composition is arranged so the eye finds the fire last.

Our Star Wars collection keeps it near the same fighters on their approach run and the freighter flying past the station.