53 Hold the Line

Hold the Line is the second chapter in the Toy Soldiers Versus Robots series, and like any good sequel, it deepens the tension while widening the world. Where We Come in Peace introduced the standoff; this painting captures the moment when hesitation has passed. Lines are drawn, positions fixed, and everyone knows there is no retreat. The title is both instruction and plea. Hold the Line. Stay where you are. Believe that this thin green row is enough.

The soldiers are familiar figures, small plastic men cast in mid-century green, frozen forever in heroic poses. They advance, crouch, aim and gesture, each one performing a role learned from playground battles and childhood imagination. These were never just toys. They were narratives in your hand. You decided who lived, who fell, who charged forward despite impossible odds. Here they are once again, scaled up by the painting, their bravery exaggerated by contrast. Against them stand the robots, towering and silent, their bright colours and polished surfaces completely at odds with the earthy greens and khakis below.

The robots do not move, yet they dominate. Their size alone shifts the balance of power. They are not aggressive in a traditional sense; there is no charge, no raised weapon. Instead, they wait. Their stillness is unsettling. The soldiers are busy, active, and full of intent. The robots simply exist, and that feels more dangerous. This imbalance echoes a childhood fear: the sense that no matter how hard you played, how bravely you imagined, some forces were too big to fight.

Colour plays a central role in the story. The green of the soldiers and artillery anchors them to the land, to nature, to something organic and human. The robots, in contrast, are rendered in bold, almost celebratory colours, glossy and toy-like, yet strangely cold. The sky above is calm, blue and expansive, indifferent to the conflict below. This calmness heightens the drama. There is no storm, no apocalyptic backdrop. This confrontation takes place on an ordinary day, which makes it feel closer, more believable.

As with many paintings in the series, there is a quiet humour at work. These are toys, after all. The threat is real only because we remember making it real. The line the soldiers are told to hold is imaginary, drawn in grass and dirt, but it carries emotional weight. It represents childhood rules, moral certainty, and the belief that standing your ground matters.

Hold the Line is about that belief. It is about small figures facing something larger than themselves, armed with little more than determination and habit. It speaks to nostalgia, but it also hints at something more adult: the realisation that courage is often symbolic, and that sometimes the act of standing firm is the point, regardless of the outcome.

Oil on fine portrait linen: 95 x 125 cm; 37.4 x 49.21 in (Sold)