Stormtroopers Battle Across a Field of Lava — Print & Oil Painting

The ground is the light source. A crust of black volcanic rock runs across the entire lower half, split everywhere by glowing orange fissures, with open flame at the right edge, and every figure in the picture is lit from below by it. Faces, or in this case visors, catch the glow along the underside instead of the top, which is what makes the whole image feel wrong in a useful way.

Two soldiers advance out of the middle distance toward the left. The nearer wears dark charcoal armour rather than white and is firing, with a hard flash at the muzzle and the recoil visible in the shoulders. The second, at the right, is in standard plate turned entirely apricot by the ambient light, weapon up and ready, a step behind.

Red bolts cross the frame horizontally in both directions, several of them very long, and one comes in from the upper left over a dark angular vehicle silhouetted at the left edge with a row of lit ports along its flank. That machine is left almost completely unresolved, a black shape with lights on it.

Saturation measures above six tenths and there is effectively one hue in the entire painting. Black rock, orange fire, red bolts, apricot armour. The only variation the artist allows is temperature within that single family, and the cold charcoal of the near trooper is what keeps the picture from collapsing into one note.

Part of our Star Wars collection, next to the same infantry wading through a bright warm sea and a blade lit over ground like this.