A chaotic, tightly packed battle scene built almost entirely from two opposing colour armies, blue-skinned or blue-armoured warriors clashing against purple-skinned foes across a rocky, tree-lined slope. Figures grapple, fall and swing weapons in every direction, bodies overlapping so densely that the eye has trouble separating individual combatants from the general roil of violence, an effect Bisley clearly intended, turning the whole panel into a single churning mass rather than a series of discrete duels. A twisting tree trunk splits the composition roughly down the centre, its bare branches reaching up into a grey sky, while smaller reptilian or goblin-like creatures scramble among the larger fighters near the bottom edge. The muted, almost desaturated palette, blues and purples bleeding into greys and browns, gives the whole scene a bruised, twilight quality appropriate to its title, and lets small flashes of red blood and gold armour trim stand out as the only sharp colour notes. This kind of dense tribal warfare, factions distinguished by colour and paint rather than uniform, fits squarely within the visual world Pat Mills built for Slaine, where clashing tribes and their totemic identities were central to the strip's Celtic mythology. Bisley's ability to choreograph dozens of figures into a legible, if overwhelming, composition without losing the overall sense of motion is one of the hallmarks of his painted battle scenes from this period of his career.
The Blues and Purples
