Atalanta (concept art from Hercules, 2014)

This is a concept of the character Atalanta from the movie Hercules starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, which I just reviewed in my last post.

This concept differs by many factors from the initial costume they made for the actress in the movie. This is far better than the one they ended up making, since this isn't trying to look like armour with only skimpy leather attire, not even covering vital areas. This is an archer, not a front rank soldier, like archer's weren't in history. The khiton (Greek tunic) is far more suitable for Atalanta, but someone just insisted that she had to have a fantasy leather 'boob armour'. Oh well, and they also changed her hair colour from brunette to blonde (some ancient Greeks were blonde, but not most of them)...

Archery mistakes:

1. The bows fistmele (brace height, the space between grip and string) is too wide, this bow is overcurved and the string is too short for it. Anyway, I've drawn a comparison with proper measurements. The bow itself seems to be rather big for a recurve bow anyway. Recurve bow has more potential energy in its arc than the same sized regular bow, so it doesn't have to be as long as a longbow in order to be effective.
2. The arrow is not nocked in the middle of the string, it's way too up. I've corrected that also. Nocking the arrow at proper point benefits the bow's energy in the most effective way and the bows limbs provide the missile equal power.
3. The grip of the bow is unnecessarily long. It really only needs the space for the fist, since the grip doesn't bend, it's the part which doesn't provide the arrow any energy, so keeping it as short as possible is beneficial for the energy transfer from bow to arrow.
4. The fletching of the arrows is too short. There's also not enough room for fingers to hold the arrows nock behind the fletching.
5. The arrows are on a back quiver, which is the only thing they brought from this concept to the appearance of Atalanta in the movie. And it is a mistake.

Good:

The costume is more authentic, if not accurate, than the one they used in the movie, and the bow doesn't have the stupid blades on it's ears. But nothing more really.