Imperial Fists Standing Over a Defeated Foe — Print & Oil Painting

Start at the bottom edge, because that is where the picture puts its weight. A warrior in dark plate has fallen backwards across the stones, one arm flung out, a red crest still standing on his helm and a red cloak spread beneath him in a wide pool of colour. He is the largest single object in the composition and he is finished.

Over him two yellow-armoured marines come forward without looking down. The nearer one fires from the hip, and the muzzle smoke has been painted as a solid white mass with weight and edges rather than as a haze, the boldest passage of paint in the picture. The second, further back and larger in the frame, carries his weapon with a blade fixed beneath the barrel.

The yellow is old and filthy: ochre in the shadows, cream on the top surfaces, brown where the plate has rubbed through, red spatter across the shins, a black eagle stamped on the thigh. Behind them more of the same colour recedes into smoke, and a dark red banner hangs at the top right corner.

Handled this way the scene reads as a report instead of a triumph. Nobody poses and nobody stands over the body; the line simply advances across it and keeps shooting. Part of our Warhammer 40.000 collection, with the same chapter firing amid dust and debris.