Snow stormtroopers and AT AT on Hoth — Print & Oil Painting

The unexpected thing here is the weather. Hoth is usually painted as a whiteout, and this is a clear bright day: a pale blue sky with soft white cloud banks, the light coming from high and behind, and an overall brightness well above half. The snow is not falling and the horizon is visible.

A single trooper holds the left half of the frame in profile, shouldering a long blaster rifle and sighting along it to the right. The armour is the cold weather pattern rather than the standard one: a smooth ribbed helmet with a broad dark visor band and a breathing unit across the mouth, a hooded cowl behind the neck, and a heavy skirted overgarment falling from the belt. It is white against white, and the artist separates it from the sky with nothing but a faint grey shadow along every edge.

Behind him the flank of a walker fills the right side, angled plating in the same off white as the armour with a large circular port set into it. The two are painted at the same value deliberately, so the machine reads as an extension of the man rather than as scenery, and the eye takes a moment to find where one ends.

One red bolt cuts horizontally past the muzzle. It is the only saturated mark on the canvas and it is placed exactly on the line the rifle is pointing, which is what turns a static profile into a moment.

Part of our Star Wars collection, alongside the walkers advancing across the open snowfields and the speeders running at them low over the ice.