Roman archer (illustration by David Kennett)

Today, for a change, a piece of illustration. Other drawings found from DeviantArt and around the Internet I just call pictures or drawings, since they are not art nor illustrations. Art would have to have some artisticality in it, and those picture lack it completely, showing only a collection of overused clichés, plain sexism and downright poor drawing skills. This is labeled as illustration, thus not high art, but some kind of an art form itself. It's made by David Kennett, who owns himself to honor to be nominated here, unlike countless others triers and failers.


Mistakes:

1. There are really only two mistakes here. Kennett has clearly done research about the Romans, this piece is called "Roman archer" (he has illustrated books about Romans and other Ancient peoples). I am also an expert of the Romans, so I can tell that the work is done properly here and the armament is in good order. But he should've looked photographs of archers using a recurve bow, because the bow doesn't bend properly here. It's almost in it's undrawn form. Not good. I've drawn for comparison the real curvature a Roman recurve bow should have.
2. The other mistake is smaller one. The quiver is not behind the shoulder, which is great, and it is on the waist level, although it's too tilted. It's almost completely sideways, a way many Asian peoples use it, but their quivers are of different construction that Ancient ones. If the quiver is in this position, the arrows tend to fall off too easily while moving. It should be vertical, like I've drawn on the right. I get that it makes a nice diagonal in the picture, but still, it's an error.

Good:

Everything else is really good in this picture! The form of the archer is perfect, the arrows and bow look decent, and even the outer-archerely things haven't got mistakes. And the drawing has a great mood in it, and I quite like Kennetts style (which is a lot to say from me).