Vader on Hoth

As any fellow Star Wars fanatic knows, this year is the 30th Anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back. My favorite movie of all time.

I always thought "Empire" showed Darth Vader at his most hardcore(Brutally mauling his own son, torturing Han Solo because he enjoys it, ordering his own fleet into an asteroid field and patiently waiting as it gets beat to hell, making a habit of choking his own overly polite officers, constantly changing the terms of a deal seemingly only because he likes screwing with Lando's mind, conspiring against his own Master, and generally not giving a %&#^).

And, the moment when Vader goes in with the ground troops raiding the rebel base during the battle of Hoth. I always liked that he doesn't care that there's a warzone all around him and he's going in on foot. With this painting, I wanted to pay an homage to that scene with one of those "could have happened off-screen!" moments. The idea here is that the Walker in the center has been brought down by rebel fire, but in true Vader fashion-he just doesn't care, and is strolling straight through the warzone toward the rebel base. I really worked on the atmospheric perspective here so that it looked similar to the film's colors.