Skyrim elf archer (fan drawing)

This is a fan drawing of a wood elf from Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which is one of my favourite videogames of all time. Archery in that game is not perfect, but this drawing is very far from it! This picture could be one of those ‘find all the mistakes’ -games, so numerous the errors are.


Mistakes:

1. This archer is left handed. It is not necessarily a mistake, since there are left handed people (but not in Skyrim), but generally it is, because the draughtsman most possibly haven’t intended her to be left handed, he just drew the archer in the mirrored position. This is a common mistake, which follows from not thinking properly before drawing.

2. This bow is not symmetrical. The upper limb of the bow which goes over the picture’s frame would not be anywhere near the likeness of the lower limb. It is drawn going to wrong direction. Why wouldn’t he copy the lower limb and paste it in there, since that’s so easy to do in Photoshop? The bow also has spikes on it’s back for no reason at all. It only makes the bow heavier and thus harder to carry and shoot with.

3. The string goes to wrong place. If the strings goes here, the upper limb of the bow must be very short. Or then it is not flexible at all. Bad things both options. I’ve here drawn where the string would lead, if it would fit in the picture (this is the option that the upper bow limb does bend, but it’s too short).

4. The bow string is not properly attached. There are really strong forces at the nocking points of the string, so they should be tightly attached to the nocks of the bow. Here instead the string is tied around some tiny branches which grow out of the bow’s ears, and they would just snap off in the first draw attempt of this bow.

5. The ‘one kilo tip’ of this arrow is way too heavy to be a missile. Instead, this could be a pretty good flanged mace (a knightly weapon used against plate armour) if attached to a sturdier shaft. Why is it that the arrow tips have to be drawn so freaking enormous?

6. The arrow goes from the wrong side of the bow. I know it’s easy to think it would go here, but it doesn’t. How is it supposed to keep there while drawing? Especially if the arrow tips weights a kilogram!

7. The bracer is the wrong side up. There should be an even surface at the inner side of the arm, so that the bow string which might hit it, won’t get damaged by all those metal buckles and stuff. But of course these are not archery bracers, these are just ‘cool fantasy bracers’, which have to be worn by everyone at all times.

8. If you look close, you can just see the fletching of this arrow, inside the archers fist! That’s not the place for it, it would be ruined! The fletching should be far further on the arrow’s shaft, so that there would be plenty of room for the gripping hand. This is just stupid.

9. There haven’t been reference used, which can be seen from all these things, also from the fact that the string gripping hand is drawn all wrong. She uses only two fingers instead of three, and the form of the hand is not right.

10. The string gripping hand should draw the string near the mouth of the archer, so close to the face, that the hand touches it. This is far below it, which makes aiming much more difficult.

11. The arrows which have killed the draugr (frosty undead corpse monster)  in the backgroung are too short and their fletchings are terribly destroyed (maybe because the archer grips the fletching of the arrows while drawing, since there isn’t enough room for a hand).

12. Where is her quiver? Did she only have those four arrows? That’s not a good strategy. Also, why hasn’t she picked up the arrows, which she just used to kill the draugr with? Arrows don’t grow in trees and a quiver can only hold some 24 of them, and if you’re alone, you would certainly pick up the arrows from dead corpses. There are some unnecessary leather straps with buckles drawn over her partially exposed breasts, but now quiver can be seen anywhere.


This drawing had so many mistakes, that I had to draw a version which corrects them (almost all). I really hope that the boy who drew this would see my post, so he could learn to draw archers properly.


"Good":

This is still not the worst out there. There can be pictures with much less  mistakes, but with much severe ones! Wait for them, you won’t be undisappointed!