Princess Leia Aims Her Blaster in a Neon-Lit Chamber — Print & Oil Painting

A full-blooded action stance, painted with the weight properly distributed: knees bent, front foot forward, torso turned and leaning into the shot, the whole body committed low. She is aiming across the picture to the left, and the barrel of the pistol is the first thing in the frame the eye reaches.

Both hands are on the weapon in heavy brown gauntlet gloves that reach the forearm: the right closed round the grip with the arm extended, the left bracing beneath. The blaster is long-barrelled with a sight fitted above it, and it is held level and steady while everything else about her is in motion.

The costume is quilted white throughout: a padded jumpsuit under a fitted sleeveless vest, cinched with a broad brown belt carrying pouches and an oval pale-green buckle, with a second strap round the right thigh holding an empty holster. Behind her a heavy tan cloak lifts and spreads across almost the entire left half of the canvas, and it is the largest single shape in the picture.

The chamber is described only in light. A wide oval screen glows acid green at the upper left, more green strips run low along the wall, and the rest falls away into brown-black machinery. That green is the only cool colour anywhere and it does not touch her: she is lit warm from the front, and the room behind her is lit by itself.

Our Star Wars collection follows her into the shot with a smoking barrel and the moment the shooting stops.