Brave (complementary material)

While the Pixar animation Brave was itself properly researched and the archery was done mainly right in it, the same cannot be said from the official merchandise and other complementary material. I combined two pictures in this post, since I don't want to bother you with this crap many days in a row.

Mistakes:

A–picture is some awful little girly *SHINY* sticker ad, and the product includes 'horsies' and other glittering stuff those of us having two X-chromosomes, but not yet 10 years of age are supposed to like. Yuck!

1. The form of the string grip is awful too. It doesn't represent any of the several known grips which have been used historically around the World. This is just a fist around the string and arrow nock going somewhere. And look at the size of those tiny hands, they are almost smaller than her eyes (which are very big, a manga influence which rids popular culture these days)!
2. The bowstring goes OVER her bow arm!!! What in the actual ƒµ¢Í<?!? The maker of this picture has absolutely zero idea how to draw an archer, he or she has not used any reference at all. This is just the kind of ignorant shiny glittering *horsiepoop* which I absolutely hate! "I know how to draw everything, so I don't have to use reference, I just draw it out of my head." If you are too lazy to make a five second Google search before starting to draw (this is of course made with a computer, so the maker cannot excuse that it would take too much time to open the computer), you can as well change your career, from an "artist" to something which requires no use of brain cells, like a telemarketer, doorbell ringing Jehova's witness or a night club DJ.
3. There are other errors, like that the arrow doesn't rest on the bow gripping fist, so she has little control over where the arrow fill fly...
4. ...or the fact that the bow is held horizontally, which is very awkward and useless position...
5. ...and the nock of the arrow is nowhere near the archers face, where it should be...
6. ...or that she doesn't even look where she's aiming while she has already drawn the bow! But it would be frustratingly useless to correct those, as long as the whole form of the archer in this picture is so fundamentally wrong in every possible way. I remain wondering if Merida's dull facial expression in this picture is intentionally telling us: "I have absolutely no clue what I am doing, but I just keep this stupid smile on my face".

B–image on the other hand... I can't decide is it worse or on the same bottom pit as the picture A.
You couldn't get to a lower level in any other way than combining these two pictures. This is so poorly made unlucky attempt at depicting the character and the bow that I cannot continue without pausing to take a deep breath. I understand if many critics have drinking problems.

1. The bow in this picture does not bend. How hard it is to understand the difference between a bow and a slingshot? The former has a rigid string attached to a bending arc, and the latter has a stretching string fastened to a rigid frame. I'm sick of these rubber band bows, which would make better weapons if you'd throw the whole shebang at your enemy, instead of trying to shoot with it. I've drawn a proper curvature for the bow in blue.
2. The maker of this picture (I refuse to call these inferior cheap freelance draughtsmen artists) has succeeded in including two mistakes inside this circle. The archers hand is not gripping the string and arrow properly, the fingers just sort of lay there. Again, could've used some reference there, but no, too lazy to do that.
3. The other one is obvious too, the fletching of the arrow is way too back, since it interferes with the grip and the bowstring. This is actually the worst case of 'wayback fletching' I've seen so far, so, have ironic congrats for that, you the maker of this picture! Merida is holding the arrow from the middle of the fletching. This is so wrong it hurts!
4. The arrow is surprisingly on the left side of the bow as it should, but this is merely a coincidence, since the maker have had no idea of proper archery techniques at all. However the arrow tip weights half a kilogram since it's a solid iron tetrahedron of the size of half the fist. And it is not even located straight ahead of the arrow shaft, it's a little bit off the point.
5. Where on Earth is she looking at? Her head is completely sideways so she can't see at all the target where she's shooting at! Apparently the maker of this picture just had to include the 'pretty female face' in this ad in order to generate more clicks, but it just makes this picture look even more amateurish and downright stupid.
6. The line of sight and line of the arrow point in completely different directions. She would have no chance of hitting that large target which is three meters away, even if the line of the arrow would point anywhere near the target, which it doesn't do.

Good, but still not good:

Usually I would consider the use of hip quiver as a good point in a picture, but in these cases it is on the responsibility of Pixar's character designers, and the praise goes to them. Certainly the makers of these pictures would have drawn Merida with a back quiver, if they could've.

It's such a shame how the makers of these pictures have completely ruined everything which was good about the Character of Merida. She really knew how to shoot quite well in the movie, but in these pictures she is lowered to the level of millions of wrongly drawn archresses with ridiculously childish mistakes.

Brave (Pixar's)

A recently(ish) film by Pixar, Brave, features heavily archery. The story itself is good and I enjoyed it in the movies, but the setting, a medieval Scotland, is plagued by anachronistic stereotypes of scots invented in the Mel Gibson epic Braveheart. Since it's debut in 1995, every single "medieval" scottish cosplayer, picture or a movie character just has to have a kilt, and blue war paint on their face and body. The fact is that those two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other. And the blue paint nothing to do with scots either!

Picts (Picti, the name given by the Romans means 'painted folk') were the (possibly Celtic) people who used the blue war paint. They lived in Caledonia (from a name of one Pictish tribe Caledones) which was in the place of modern Scotland, at the late iron age, in Ancient time period, before Middle Ages.
Kilt on the other hand originates in the scottish highlands in the 16th century! That's modern age.

There's over a millennia between the use of the two, and they were/are used by a different people. Picts were no longer present at Caledonia when some pirates from Ireland – called Scots – came there, and gave the name for the modern country (not independent, still).

But now to the archery stuff!


Good:

The archery is extremely well presented in Brave-movie. The animators have really searched for proper historical and archerical reference, and actually used them in the final product. A thing rarely seen in other movies, so congratulations to Pixar for that! May it be because this is a computer animation, and other archery featuring movies are mainly made with real human actors, with a wide range of possible human errors in archery? An animation character can do things with a bow that a human cannot without proper training.
Meridas shooting form is almost perfect (as in picture C for example), the line of the arrow and the lines of both the arms are parallel as they should. She also has a hip quiver, which is very good!


Mistakes:

1. At least back in the days the English longbow (the second most overrated weapon after only 'Teh-Bestest-Eva-Katana') was the main choice of weapon for archer characters in movies. Nowadays the wages have turned in favour of a recurve bow, my favourite of the two main bow types. However, a recurve bow is primarily associated with either Eastern cultures (from Anatolia to Japan), or then Ancient peoples around the Mediterranean (Greeks, Romans etc.), while a longbow is quintessentially a Western European weapon, the most famous incarnation of it being the Welsh (English) longbow of the Middle Ages. In Brave, they had the perfect place to use the longbow, but instead they chose to give Merida a recurve bow. This is an error in my mind.
2. In the picture B can be seen a very strange thing, Meridas bow's lower limb has some stones tied to it! Why would that be, I have no idea. Completely useless and in fact a harmful idea, which makes the bow unnecessarily heavier. In other scenes the bows limbs have some strange discs attached to them, also with no use whatsoever.
3. In the screencapture C the fletching of the arrow is too back since it touches the string and the fingers of the archer. There should be more room after the nock of the arrow.
4. Most of the time Merida shoots with the bow vertically, like it is properly done, but in the picture D she shoots horizontally, a modern fashion style, which is thought to look 'cool', but it's only stupid. This movie almost avoided that cliché, but falls short here.

Lars Andersen part 2: myths of archery

Lars Andersen performing a bow trick.

Almost immediately when Lars Andersen's speed shooting video went viral, there emerged one and another column of criticism on different newspapers and web sites, written usually by self-claimed, but still unnamed, "archery experts", who angrily (and quite enviously) bashed his techniques, claimed them being nothing more than circus tricks, useless in warfare, and even accused him of 'distortion of history', a pretty serious claim with only misunderstandings backing it.

I want to correct those now. If you still haven't seen Andersen's amazing skills on video, you can find it in my last post in this blog.

Back quiver, a Hollywood myth, persisting over nine decades!

Those envy "experts" misunderstood the point clearly stated in Andersen's video, that back quivers weren't really used much at all in history, since they are very impractical. They thought that Andersen meant that quivers weren't used at all, then making obvious statements, that "no one would carry twenty to forty arrows in their hands". Of course not. Of course quivers were used. The thing was: quivers weren't used on back. That's the Hollywood myth, which they think looks 'cool', and because of that, every modern archer wants to replicate that and keep their arrows on their back. They probably haven't even tried to use hip quivers, although they would be much more practical, easier and faster to use.

Medieval longbowman with a proper hip quiver.

Another point was made about 'distortion of history', which is a crappy statement. Andersen claimed that the techniques he have discovered and practised have been lost in time for quite some time. This is in fact true. The "experts" claimed that these techniques were only lost in Europe, but not in Asia, where they would still prevail even today. I would like to ask these "experts", how many cultures in Asia still wage war, or even hunt, with traditional bows? I give you the answer too: zero! Also Andersen's techniques are based on Saracen archery, and Saracen (a generic term for arabic muslims in late Midde Ages) culture exists no more (replaced by muslim culture and different national identities, certainly the art of fast archery has been lost until now).

The "experts" gave as an example some traditional Japanese archery (kyudo) practised today. But the thing is: kyudo is a martial art, a sport, not a way of fighting in a war! These are two completely different things. In kyudo the archers use a long time for aiming each shot, and accuracy is the main goal in it. They are not fighting against an enemy, who would try to kill them. Also, sport bows are only half as powerful as war bows would be. That means they require much less force, and they can be held longer in the full drawn aiming position. With a real war bow, an archer doesn't really "aim" with the arrow, he knows where it will go when he releases, he just draws quickly and releases immediately (because with a powerful war bow the full draw requires immense amount of strength and if someone tries to aim with a full draw, their hands will get shaky and the arrow will fly off the target).

A modern Japanese kyudo archer holds his arrows on his back, not in a full quiver, but in a very small quiver called yebira, which doesn't hold the arrow shafts as tightly as a western full quiver, and actually the arrows can be drawn from the side, not from behind a shoulder, like in movies.

A historical kyudo archer. Japanese archery is based on wholly different techniques than European or Saracen archery, which Lars Andersen represents.

'Lars Andersen, a new level of archery' review

Lars Andersen, a Danish master archer has uploaded a video on Youtube, demonstrating both his skills and the historical methods of archery. Those methods have been lost in history for a long time, until now Andersen has reconstructed them based on literary and pictographical evidence. This is experimental archaeology at its best!

He's an incredible shooter, I must say. Certainly the best in the world. His speed AND accuracy are on the top level compared to anyone else. The level is so much higher than even thought to be possible, that it's breathtaking to behold such a beautiful sight of skills in use! He says he has practised with a bow and arrow for ten years now. I must applaud to him.

I will make some points from the video next. Watch it first, and read after that.

1. Lars Andersen is the top archer in the world. No one else comes even close. While some might be half as fast, they don't move while they shoot and they are possibly not near as accurate. While some Olympic archers might be as accurate as Andersen, they wouldn't be near as good on the move, and are significantly slower. And they use "unfair" modern equipment (bows with laser sights etc, so boring!). I meant to say that while Lars is on the level 100 of archery, the next best is about on the level 50. Even though in ancient and mediaeval times archery was far more widespread a practice than today, I don't think most of the – even professional archers – were on this level back then.
2. Most of the archers in old manuscripts (which Andersen has used as evidence) do shoot the arrow from the left side of the bow (from the perspective of a right handed archer). There are four pictures in this video showing the arrow on the right side of the bow. When the arrow is on the left side, it rests on the bow hand and is easy to keep there, it doesn't fall off. This is a recommendable form for any beginner or intermediate archer. In fact, keeping the arrow on the right would be recommended only to Lars-level of archers, if they're shooting while keeping the arrows on their hand, instead of a quiver. So, first learn to keep the arrow on the left side of the bow, it's easier, and more practical. Most archers did this historically anyway.
3. Lars keeps his arrows on his string hand, and holds them from the nock end. In most pictures the archers hold the arrows from the tip. And I can't imagine why they would do that. As Andersen demonstrates, he's incredibly quick to shoot repeatedly while holding the arrows like that, since they're already at the right position and angle for the next shot. If the arrows are held from the tip, they have to be turned around before shooting. That's impractical. And holding them from the nock is also easier and safer than from the pointy end.
4. About one thing I have to disagree with the video. The uselessness of mail/maille (called erroneously "chain mail" in the video, mail means just that, it doesn't need the prefix 'chain') as an armour. Mail, invented by the Celts in central Europe, was used for thousands of years as a main armour type. It was most used armour for the Romans for example (despite what movies might make you to believe), and they won practically everyone. If arrows would penetrate mail (with padding underneath, which is an important part of the armour) with such ease, people wouldn't have used mail for so long period of time. They would have quickly noticed it's flaws and replaced it with something better. But this is not the case. Mail is a good protection against arrows, but these modern replica armours are far from the quality of the original pieces. The mail shirt used in this video looks pretty decent from afar, but I doubt it would be wholly accurate replication. Why? Because a full shirt of mail armour would cost between 10 and 20 thousand dollars to make today. I know only one authority on the subject, who could replicate the mail armour in it's most historically accurate way: Erik D. Schmid. All the numerous tests of arrows versus mail found on Youtube are worthless, since they use butted mail, which the guys have made themselves (I have made it too). Butted mail consists of rings which are just bent closed (the ends of the wire touching each other), but almost any arrow shot from almost any bow shot by almost anyone can penetrate through butted links. The rings just bend open. That's not how mail was historically made. In the real mail the links were riveted shut. There are some riveted mail armours commercially available, but they're mass produced in India with poor quality. The links are too big (easier to penetrate through them), too thin, and too soft (easier to brake them). Mail with a good padding underneath can stop arrows. Perhaps not every single time, but most of the times. That's why it was used. There are stories of crusader knights looking like pincushions after a battle, and still very much alive, thanks to their mail!

All and all, the skills of this man with a bow and arrow are unbelievable! I highly recommend watching this video and every one of his upcoming videos instead of any archery related movies. I wonder if he teaches an archery class, there would be a queue as far as an arrow can fly.

Move from Tumblr back to Blogger

I've had been making blogs in Blogger (and former Blogspot) for years now, and I'm quite happy with it. It's a nice blogging platform with reasonable customization (I need customization). Recently I started this new blog about archery, and I started it with Tumblr since I've been told that everybody uses it nowadays. I didn't like it at all, it was confusing to even start the blog. I had to make an account and then another username for the blog. Then I suddenly had two blogs, and I only needed one. Tumblr (like Blogger) has some nice collection of web fonts, but sadly the fine title in my blog didn't work. The web font was just broken, corrupted, a mongrel. There couldn't be titles in the blog posts when I uploaded them with the photo option (which was best for uploading photos, I heard). Text colour couldn't be changed within a post. Customization was very limited. I couldn't change the width of the blog template. All and all, Tumblr was not suitable for my needs, serious blogging. It doesn't favour serious, text based, traditional blogging at all. It's made by hipsters for hipsters, intended for micro-blogging, a series of images accompanied with short introduction texts, if words at all. I don't like that, maybe that hyperactive adhd clicking and thumbs-upping world is good for some young people (no, it isn't, makes them even more unpatient), but not for me.
The most frustrating things however are that when I made a post and accidentally pushed the backspace button twice while writing the tags for the post, the web browser went back to a previous page and Tumblr hadn't autosaved my post at any time. I had to write it all over again. Blogger does autosave. And another thing, Tumblr blogs don't show up on a Google search. On a Google search! If something doesn't show up on Google search, it doesn't exist in the Internet! So it's completely useless to make to blog in Tumblr, if no one can accidentally find it. I would just have to promote it to everyone. No thanks. I will get much more views in Blogger for sure. And I didn't even see the analytics in Tumblr, there wasn't even the most basic app for calculating the visitors of the blog! On the other hand, Google analytics are the best there are.

So, I will continue this blog in here, in good ol' Blogger, since I found an easy tutorial on the Internet for converting a Tumblr blog to a Blogger blog. Nice reading moments to all of you from now on in this platform. The content will be as high (or low, if you don't like it) quality as before, text based posts (can't correct the mistakes and give advice without writing it down) with lots of helpful images and infographics too.

Bye for now!

Pink Lady Archer

This pink skinned lady has some issues, other than her shiny plastic skin and rather uncomfortable position, not even talking about the skimpy and useless costume on her, but about her bow techniques.

Mistakes:

1. First of all, this bow is way too thick. It wouldn’t bend at all. It should be some three times thinner at the point I’ve circulated. It also has some fancy metal spikes/things on it, which are really cumbersome and don’t do the bow any good. The grip part also seems really weak compared to the heavy bulky limbs of this bow.


2. The line from the drawing arm and the line of the arrow do not match. The drawing arm is raised upwards, almost to 45 degree angle, which is not good. There should go a straight parallel line from the tip of the arrow to the elbow of the drawing arm.


3. The grip of the string and arrow is very strange. Apparently it was either too hard to draw (draw like with a pencil, or in this case, in Photoshop) the woman’s hand in the correct grip form, or then the maker of this picture don’t know how that hand should go. I guess it’s the second option. The hand should be rotated 90 degrees to the right (from the perspective of the archer) and grab the string with three fingers.


4. The correct nocking point for the arrow on this bowstring would be here, where the little red arrow points. Now the arrow is nocked on the string too high, which makes the bow’s limbs unbalanced.


5. The arrow – once again – goes on the wrong side of the bow. It should be on the left side (from the perspective of a right handed archer), so that it keeps there and doesn’t fall off while drawing the bow.


6. Where are the arrows? I don’t see any quiver or spare arrows on her.

Good:

Well, this is not terrible, if the few mistakes would be corrected. At least she doesn’t shoot sideways!

Avatar (James Cameron's)

Now is the time for the most highest-grossing movie of all time (if not adjusted to inflation, otherwise it loses it’s title to Gone With The Wind, a film made 70 years before this one), a movie which is basically a computer animation with some added human cameos, which stole it’s plot from Pocahontas and it’s visual milieu from Bug’s Life and Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, and which would not be the highest-grossing movie of all time without the newly introduced 3D-technology back at 2009. This is of course the famous Avatar (not to be confused with Avatar: The Last Airbender), which uses the infamous Papyrus as it’s title font.

But don’t get me all wrong, I actually enjoyed the movie, because of the (unintended?) visual similarity to Bug’s Life and Morrowind, which I love both.

Avatar’s archery is though depicted all wrong.

First of all, all the Na’vi (the blue super tall humans with tails, elf ears and slightly deformed facial features, who should look like “alien”, but not too alien, so that the viewers can still identify with them) are all left handed. It is because the director James Cameron and the lead actress Zoë Saldaña are both left handed and they decided to make all Na’vi lefties. I must admit this not to be a mistake this time, since they really decided it to be that way, but it bothered me for the whole movie.

Mistakes:

1. The beginners bow grip mistake, holding the arrow with an index finger. It keeps there without holding if you’re calm, and this only hurts your hand, damages the fletching of the arrow and can effect the flight of the missile.


2. This string grip is reversed. The moviemakers apparently thought this would look more “alien” to us, but it looks stupid. It is impractical and unnecessarily hard form, which no bow hunting people (on which the Na’vi are based) have ever used on Earth, because it’s just not good. This hand just shouldn’t be upside down.


3. The string should go here where this circle points, close to the face of the archer. Now the bow is way overdrawn, since the string is about half a meter back from the face. This makes aiming much more difficult, since the end of the arrow is not close to the archers eyes.


4. The fletchings of arrows in this movie are made either from feathers, or from insect wings. That is not a mistake, since fletching can be made of different materials (although feathers would be best), but the number of feathers on these arrows are. Based on the screencaptures I can only see two feathers (or bug wings) in the arrows. An arrow needs three feathers in order to rotate around itself in three-dimensional space, after releasing of the missile. This rotation makes the aim more accurate, two feathers don’t do anything.


5. The distance between bows arc and string, called fistmele or brace height, should be the length of the archers fist and a protruding thumb (thumbs-up-hand). This bow is way overcurved, since the fistmele is as long as Neytiris entire forearm! That is the reason behind the mistake in point 3. I’ve drawn there a longbow with good proportions for scale.

Good:

I can’t actually think of any. Yes, these could be tried to justify since they are “aliens” from another solar system, but it doesn’t substitute the physical errors with the bow, and arrows fletching, nor the beginners grip mistakes with both hands. Surely the Na’vi, who rely on archery with their society’s food supply, would have corrected these flaws in design when they notice them. Or then they are a really stupid species which repeat their predecessors mistakes form generation to generation.


P.S.

It would’ve been nice to see what the moviemakers would’ve came up with if the Na’vi would’ve had six limbs like every other species on that moon, not just the regular two arms and two legs.


Update

Five years later I have updated this review with some corrections, read it here.

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!

Legolas from The Lord of the Rings

And now, Legolas Greenleaf! Everyone’s favourite elf! Teenager-girls’ day dream, Orlando Bloom, knows pretty well how to shoot with a bow, but there are some issues with the character of Legolas.

Mistakes:

1. The most frequent issue is that Legolas shoots sideways. Many times, not always, but a lot, as these pictures show. I calculated the angles he holds his longbow, and I put the pictures in order from the straight vertical (90º angle from the horizon level) from almost completely horizontal position of the bow (25º angle). I don’t know who’s fault is this, maybe the directors’.

2. At the picture A Legolas has very amateurish grip, as if he weren’t instructed at all, and this would be just some promotional photo before the actual archery training started for the actor. I don’t know about that, but he has the arrow on the wrong side of the bow, and he holds it between his index and middle fingers, which is going to hurt (and possibly effect the missiles flight) when the arrow is released.

3. At the same picture Legolas also draws the string with only two fingers, instead of the “standard” mediterranean grip of three fingers. Three is better, more stabile. Four is too much, and two is too less.

4. At the picture D our Mirkwoodian shoots two arrows at once. I wonder why would anyone do that? Since the arrows will hit pretty much the same target. What are two arrows going to do what one can’t? If my physics calculations aren’t way off, the power of the bow now transfers to two different arrows, rather than putting all the pushing force into one missile, thus decreasing the effect of the arrows by half! That’s actually worse than shooting just one arrow. If one arrow penetrates the armour of the enemy, that’s enough. If the target is not wearing any armour, one arrow will kill it, if the aim is right. No need for two arrows. The double arrows are less likely to penetrate an armour, since the halved force. This is more Hollywoodian than Mirkwoodian.

5. I don’t know what happens in the picture F with his gripping hand, seems like an idiotic photoshop error, but anyway his grip is too far away from the face. Otherwise Bloom’s archery form is excellent (if the bow would stay upwards all the time, but he’s probably been asked to do it sideways). In the picture G you can see how the bowstring will hit his hanging sleeve, because of this unnatural position.

6. Back quiver. But almost everyone in all the media has it. It was rarely used, sometimes, somewhere, somewhen. Maybe. It is possible to draw arrows from a back quiver if it’s made and positioned right, but it would be much easier and practical to draw them from a hip quiver. Tauriel has it, why not you, Legolas? “Why not me, you ask, because I’m too good for that, it doesn’t give me any challenge! It’s too easy to kill orcs anyway, it get’s boring. The back quiver gives me a little extra, when I have to calculate how much I have my infinite arrows left, since I can’t see them.”


Not an error, but…

In the movies Legolas shoots extremely fast. It is in fact possible to shoot as fast as he do, but with a different method. It requires the arrows to be held in hands, either in the bow hand or the string hand. Thus can be shot four to five arrows at the same speed rate as Legolas does. It is not possible to draw them from a quiver at that rate. But this is not an error in Tolkien’s universe, since Legolas is supposed to be superhumanly fast, because he’s an elf!

And elves are the best.


Good:

Bloom has learned his archery well, since his form is in most cases perfect, although many times the bow is held sideways. He has also helped to popularize archery to modern youth, of whom many has started the hobby because of that.

Herakles / Hercules (statuette)

This is a small statue of Herakles/Hercules, a Graeco-Roman hero, who had a pelt of Nemean lion as his armour (since it was impenetrable by weapons), club as his main weapon, but also a bow and arrows (poisoned in the blood of the multi-headed serpent monster Hydra).

Mistakes:

1. Even though Herakles was the strongest of all the Greek heroes, drawing the bow this much is not reasonable at all. It makes the arrow harder to control and aiming difficult.

2. The arrow is the size of a javelin! It’s way too big, too long and too heavy. The arrow tip is also too large and heavy. Would be more practical to actually throw the arrow by hand, than try to shoot it with a bow.

3. The quiver is attached to the hip, but it’s way too short for this huge “arrow”. In the second picture I’ve drawn the length of the arrow over the quiver, so everyone can see that it’s way too small. Maybe it’s long enough for practically sized arrows, and not for these spears.

4. The form of the arrow hand is way off, since the arrow is so overly long. The hand should be much closer to the face and directly behind the arrow, not bent like this.

5. Arrow is on the wrong side of the bow. This is also one of the most common errors, since people just don’t do their research properly, before starting to draw/sculpt an archer they have in mind.


In the last picture I’ve corrected the size of the arrow, and other minor errors.


Good:

Not much, but I’ve seen worse.

Susan from Narnia

Today is Narnia’s turn. The character of Susan Pevensie has been compared to more recent portrayal of Katniss Everdeen from the Hunger Games, but I don’t see what they have in common other than both are archers and both are female. There are already plenty of female archer characters in games and other media. I don’t know what the thing is with femininity and archery. Shooting with a real bow is hard, it’s not child’s play like some people tend to think. There might be a cliché that bow is a suitable weapon to women, if they have to have a weapon. The other alternative is a spear or some other pole arm.

Anyway, to the mistakes.

1. The back quiver. More impractical than a hip quiver. But ‘less cool’ if you ask moviemakers.

2. Anna Popplewell, the actress has some issues with her bow hand. Clearly an archery instructor has been utilised in the making of this movie (like any decent movie featuring archery should), but she still keeps her bow hand in this weird position, the two last fingers wrapped, and not around the bow. You can see that in four different pictures.

3. This is clearly a photoshoot picture and not from the movie, so the fault is most probably photographer’s, who has instructed the actress to tern her head and to look at the camera. This is not a shooting position, she doesn’t look where she’s aiming at. The string (and arrow) should also be drawn close to face, like she’s properly doing in most other pictures.

4. This is also a photographer’s fault, possibly. The infamous ‘sideways shooting’, which isn’t practical at all. The bow cannot be fully drawn so the arrows don’t fly as far as they could and hit closer targets with less force, if they even hit the target since the aim is far from good (the arrow being away from the archer’s face).

5. Now this is from a movie again, but now she has the ‘beginners grip’, with her index finger holding the arrow in place. That is not good at all, since the fletching of the arrow will hit her hand, and it is also not good for the flight of the missile itself.


Good:

Susan has surprisingly good form otherwise, if we don’t count the odd grip of the bow. Much better than Katniss (although based on just one picture, haven’t seen the Hunger Games movies). Susan’s aim is also good, she has the arrow rightly positioned on her cheek, so she has a real chance of hitting her targets.

Could be D&D elf ranger

This looks again like some D&D character art, but can’t be sure. Anyway, a basic leather clad green–brown wood elf ranger with a bow, long blonde hair flowing below a hood and a funny cloak made of tree leaves apparently. But what kind of bow is he holding? It’s very strange indeed, the size is of a longbow, but it has the ears (upper and lower tip) of a recurve bow. The grip part is from a longbow again. Kind of a mix between European and Asiatic styles. Could work, but should maybe bend a little bit more in this picture.

But now to the main issues.

Mistakes:

1. The form of the archer is completely wrong. I guess that the maker of this picture have looked at some Japanese archery photos, but they have nothing to do with European or any other Asian archery styles. The Japanese shooting style with a raised arms are only used with hankyu and daikyu, the Japanese short- and longbows, which are asymmetrical in shape with a much bigger upper part than the lower. And anyway with the Japanese style both the arms should be raised, now this elf only has raised his string arm. This posture is stupid. All his lines are lead to different directions. The line of the arrow (A), points a bit downwards, so the arrow won’t fly very far, only below ten meters. The line of his bow arm (B) crosses with the line of the arrow, since it poins a bit upwards, and this shouldn’t happen. C is the line of the archers string arm, but only forearm, since his upper arm points toward the sky (D). All these lines should be as parallel as possible, so that the drawing of the bow wouldn’t be so hard and tiring and the missile would fly straight to where the archer is aiming at. Now it doesn’t happen.

2. The bow is tilting downwards, because the arrow is nocked on the string too low. A good five centimeters higher would be better. I’ve drawn the red box to show the position of the bow now, and the blue one to tell how it would be better. He’s still aiming downwards but maybe his target is a goblin again?

3. The bowman has a hip quiver, which is much more practical than a back quiver, but this one is positioned horizontally, when it should really be vertically attached to a hip belt or a baldric (belt going over a shoulder). Being horizontal is very bad, since the arrows fall off it easily while running.

4. There are more mistakes! Seems that the archer has gripped the string with only his index finger, which is very hard, since it would require tremendous index finger muscles, which this skinny fellow hasn’t got. The other option is that the bow is very low poundage (i.e. ineffective) and doesn’t require much strength to draw.

5. The arrow is too short for this bow, since the arrow tip just barely reaches over the bow’s back at the front. In fact the archers straightened index finger of his bow hand goes further than the arrow. This should not be the case.

6. The arrow which he is shooting in this picture also doesn’t have fletching at all! The purpose of fletching is to get the arrow flight more straight, so it’s easier to hit a target. Most probably the draughtsman has purposefully left the fletching out, since it would’ve covered the bowman’s face a bit. And of course face can’t be covered by some “unnecessary” feathers! The fletching wouldn’t have hurt, since the feathers can be minimum 1 cm high (and then some 15 cm long), and rounded in profile, so they wouldn’t have even covered his face much.


Good:

The bow does bend and not only the string stretches, which seems like the most common mistake in these archery drawings around Internet. But not much more good to say about this. Maybe I tried to say something good, since this is not terrible, at least if the form of the archers string hand would be correct. But much worse is to come later…

Katniss from Hunger Games

Today is Hunger Games’ turn.

I haven’t seen the movies, because I’m not particularly interested to see just another film adaptation of a ‘teen fantasy phenomenon’ book series by some female author, who went from nothingness to instant fame and riches, since kids love to hype this kind of things too much. Anyway…

Mistakes:

1. Our strong, independent, young and of course attractive (to some viewers) main hero Katniss is supposed to be extremely skilled with a bow, but still in this photo she has grabbed the bow in a hurry like her life depends on every millisecond, or then she doesn’t really know what she’s doing. The first mistake which causes other errors, is that she has nocked the arrow (put the bow string into the nock of the arrow) too high on the string. The arrow should be as close to the center point of the bow string as possible. It cannot be in the exact center, since the hand holding the bow forces the arrow travel above it, so it’s half a fist away from the center. But that’s not much. In this picture the arrow is way too high, which makes the whole bow tilt backwards, as you can clearly see. The red arrow number 1 shows where would be the correct nocking point on the string for arrows.

2. The red arrow number 2 shows where the shaft of the arrow should lie while the bow is being drawn. Something has just happened here, and it’s bad. The arrow has fallen from atop the bow hand and now the archer has no control over where the arrow will fly. She has even tried to guide the arrow with her index finger, which is a beginners technique, but it failed apparently. Maybe it’s because the bow is so backwards tilted that she has difficulties trying to keep it straight with her bow hand.

3. The arrows are again made for men with longer arms, and not particularly measured for the actress in question. The red arrow number 3 shows where the arrow could end for her. The longer arrow allows bigger draw, but that requires more length to the arms of the archer.

4. What is this fletching? It’s quite damaged. Maybe these arrows have been used many times for shooting in thick bushes or something similar which would damage the feathers.

5. Back quiver is especially bad for hunting in thick woods, since if you try to be quiet and unobtrusive, drawing the arrows from a back quiver has a high probability to bump with tree branches and other forestly matter, thus creating sound which would alert animals, and humans too, if you’re hunting with your own species like in this example perhaps. A hip quiver would be more practical, as always.


In the second picture I’ve drawn the proper alignment of the longbow and it’s arrow nocked in the correct point on the string.


Good:

These movies (with a few recent others) has made archery popular again among youngsters, which can’t be a bad thing, can it? Maybe it can, if people who only want to be like their hero, fill the archery ranges, but don’t really care about learning the proper techniques. But perhaps I worry over nothing.


Update

Five years later I have updated this review, read it here.

Kitsune Stratagem (children's fantasy book)

This one is obviously an independent children’s fantasy book (read: cliché-ridden story by an unknown author), which’ cover image is obviously made by his friend (read: someone who knows basically how to draw, but not what he’s drawing about, also full of clichés and horrible graphic design).

Despite the blatant rape of the already ugly title font, this cover showcases overall poor typographic as well as illustrational sense.

But now to the (arrow)point of it.

Mistakes:

1. In the picture A you can see that the archers line of sight/bow hand is very different than the line of his arrow hand, so he has no idea where he’s missile will be flying. He would not hit a target if it was three meters away! This is a bad error.

2. In the picture B can be seen the most often made mistake in archery drawings, that the bow doesn’t bend when drawn, but the string stretches. This is not how the bow works! Any of the bows. The string is not some rubber band, it doesn’t stretch. It is indeed the bow itself that bends, thus creating much more force than any rubber band ever could. If it’s just the rubber band which streches, then the thing is not called a bow, but a slingshot! In this picture I have drawn a rectangle (adjusted to 3D space) from the foremost part of the bow to the end of the fully drawn string, plus a vertical line, which shows where bows nocks (ends of the bow arc) place in that imaginary box. The bow should bend that the nock-line would be in the middle of the box, and now it only is at one third of that rectangle.

3. You can also see another mistake, which I’ve highlighted in the B picture. The 3D adjusted bow box is clearly very much tilted. The bow is thus held diagonally, when it should be vertically held. This is minor ‘sideways shooting’, which is always a mistake. The red circle in this picture shows the area where the string touches the archers flank, so it cannot be drawn any further from there. And it could if the bow would be held properly, and drawn to bend realistically.

4. The picture C shows various other errors in this book cover. Like that the bowman is not holding his arrow and string properly, actually he’s not holding the string at all, only the arrow, which would be very insecure and childish method (highlighted in the circle number 1).

5. The arrow’s fletching is too back, so there’s not much room for fingers to hold it. In this picture the bow string also touches the fletching, which is not good (circle 2).

6. The maker of the cover picture has drawn this guy some ‘bracers’ (incorrect term for a piece of plate armour, correct term being vambraces, but I’m not going to use it here, since these are not anywhere near real vambraces), made out of leather, so the only purpose for them could be to protect the left forearm of the archer while he’s shooting, since leather offers almost none protection from weapons. However the ‘bracer’ of the left arm is drawn on the outside of the arm, so it doesn’t protect the arm from the possible (and frequent) hits of the bow string. It’s obvious that the draughtsman hasn’t known the purpose of these ‘bracers’, he’s just drawn them like this, since it’s a fantasy cliché that every character always has to have them (circle 3).

7. The arrow goes wrong side around the bow. In this position it would fall off (circle 4).

8. Arrow tip weights a kilogram since it’s so big and the arrow would fly a few meters at best being so over tip weighted (circle 5).

9. Where are his arrows? He only has one? That’s one stupid bowman. I’ve drawn the circle 6 where there should be a quiver.


And in the final picture I’ve corrected all (well, not nearly all [the bowman’s stupid knee patches, his fantasy leather vest, the unmistakable sexism in the portrayal of a woman, the fact that this picture has humans in it, but cannot be from Earth, since the Moon is too close…], but all archery related) errors and mistakes. The white line shows the proper bending of this recurve bow and the correct posture for shooting. I also added the hip quiver and one ‘bracer’ the right side on.

Good:

Not much, but there are much much worse to come!

Dragon Blade (Chinese movie)

These pictures are from an upcoming Chinese/Hong Kong movie Dragon Blade, which claims to be a historical action fantasy film, but has so nothing to do with actual history, that even naming the word ‘history’ anywhere near this movie is a horrid blasphemy!
The movie tells about a purely fictional story of ancient “Romans” fighting against ancient “Chinese” people over the control of the silk road, which in reality was in control of the Parthian empire which existed between Roman and Chinese empires. But this movie forgets it. It also forgets that the Chinese were the producers of silk and many other goods so they didn’t care to control the silk road. All the gear and weaponry presented in this movie are apparently designed by the director himself, who has obviously played too much World of Warcraft, so ridiculously impractical and unrealistic all the equipment are!

But now to the main topic.

Mistakes:

1. What is this this bow grip? Doesn’t seem very solid at all. Maybe the bow is too thick for this Chinese woman’s small hands. Her fingers just don’t reach around the bow’s grip properly. They shouldn’t have put so much fur and other stuff around the grip. Simple wooden grip would’ve been fine.

2. This string release method is very rarely used in history, since it’s so impractical. There’s always a possibility that it was only an artistic convention and not actually used at all. It’s much harder than any of the other release methods (this is mediterranean release, but the hand is turned upside down). Probably the moviemakers thought this looks cooler.

3. The woman has so much fur on her, that it makes shooting difficult. See in this circle how the fur gets in the way of the bow string. Not good, can effect the flight of the arrow.

4. This back quiver is so far away back that it would be quite difficult to even find the arrows with a hand backside the archers head, where she can’t see where the arrows are.

5. Sideways shooting is always bad. No one ever shot like this with a bow, or with any other weapon for that matter. See where the red arrow points, the string bends because it collides with the flank of the archer, and thus the bow cannot be drawn full length and the missile lose momentum.

6. Even though the bow is not quite fully drawn, the arrows are too long for this woman’s shortish arms. You can’t even see the tip of the arrow in this photo, so they’re definitely too long for her. The bow and arrows haven’t been measured for this actress personally. Minor error, but still.


Good:

The recurve bow and the arrows themselves look realistic and actually working weapons and not as fantastical as everything else in this movie, some swords with forked tips for example, terrible!

D&D elf character

This elf fellow is – by the style of the art and that particular artist – from Dungeons & Dragons table-top role-playing game’s character rule book.

And I am not entirely happy with it.

Mistakes:

1. The sting of the bow is not attached to the nocks (at the ends of the bow arc), but rather tied around the limbs of the bow (the upper and lower part of the arc). That is very stupid since thus the bow loses much of it’s potential, because the limb parts extending past the nocking points of the string doesn’t effect anything. As if he had a smaller bow, ending where the string is attached. Very stupid indeed, and doesn’t even look good.

2. What are those spikes for? Do he intend to hit enemies with the bow instead of shooting them? Isn’t he supposed to be a superhumanly fast shooter, since he’s an elf? Can’t he shoot the orcs before they get too close? Doesn’t he have any back-up weapon, dagger or short sword for that purpose? Those spikes only make the bow more cumbersome and tiring to use. You should never hit anything with the bow itself anyway, it can brake it.

3. The grip (handle) part of the bow is unnecessarily long, that might not be a big mistake, but there’s no use for that part to be any longer than the bowman’s fist. The bow doesn’t bend at the grip part (or at least it shouldn’t) so if the grip is way too long, that makes the bow less bendy (which can be a bad thing).

4. The arrow is on the wrong side of the bow (looking from archer’s perspective), it could fall off from atop the bow holding hand. The arrow also floats above that fist, but maybe it’s a magic arrow, since it glows and some small lightning bolts surround it. Still, wouldn’t hurt to draw it at realistic level resting on the bow hand.

5. The elf has two back quivers. I get it, weapons held on person’s back are ‘super cool’, although impossible to draw from there, but they don’t seem to care about that in movie and game studios. Arrows are possible to draw from a back quiver – although harder than from a hip quiver, but if he has two back quivers, drawing arrows from the second one is not possible. The quiver, if attached to back, should stick out from behind the archers right shoulder (if he’s right handed, to which we will come later), so he can draw the arrows from his string hand, while the other hand holds the bow. Now, how would he draw the arrows from behind the opposite shoulder of the drawing hand? The head gets in the way and the arrows are further away, so the reach of the arm isn’t just enough to do that. So, why two back quivers, just because it looks even more ‘super cool’ to have two things on someones back to form a cross pattern? Stupid. Could’ve put two hip quivers though, but no, can’t use them, looks less cool.

6. The arrows (showing on the quivers) don’t have long enough nock part (that part coming behing the fletching (feathers). If the fletching goes all the way up to the back end of the arrow, there’s no room for fingers to grasp it and to attach it to the bowstring. There should be at least three centimeters of the arrow shaft behind the fletching.

7. And finally, why is he left handed? Of course there are left handed people around, and probably even elves can be lefties, but they really only make up for some 10 % of the population. However, left handed archers are frequently depicted on drawings and concept art, much more than the percentage would justify. The draughtsmen just didn’t think of making their archers left handed, they just didn’t think handedness at all, and thus made this a mistake.

Good:

The posture of the archer, and the position of the arms are okay, and the release grip of the string hand is almost good. Although he’s aiming a little downwards, which won’t help the arrow to travel super far, but maybe his target is really close, or really small (goblin?).

Tauriel from The Hobbit

I decided to start my blog ranting with everyones favourite-to-hate non-tolkienite strong female character elf, Tauriel, from Peter Jackson’s the Hobbit-trilogy of course.


Let’s get down to business.


Mistakes:

1. The bow is way too powerless, or as we say in Finnish: “lussu jousi”. It can clearly be seen in the third picture in which you can notice the huge gap between the arc and the string. The proper size for that gap at the grip level should be the length of the archers fist and upwards protruding thumb (I have drawn there the proper measurements for a recurve bow for comparison). The gap in Tauriels bow is far wider and I do happen to know why.

The thing is with movies: they can’t really kill people, as sad as it is. Not even extras! So they use extra carefulness when weapons are present. And bows are always dangerous missile weapons. For that reason bows used in films are never as powerful as real hunting- or warbows would be. That’s a safety thing, if someone accidentally releases an arrow towards a person, that person probably doesn’t die, since the bows are not that powerful.

But there’s also another reason which I think has been behind this case. They probably made Tauriel’s bow more ineffective than Legolas’ bow, which seems pretty adequate, because Evangeline Lilly, Tauriel’s actress wasn’t as strong as Orlando Bloom. Womens bows are often less powerful than mens, for obvious reasons. Drawing a bow takes a lot of strength, and they probably thought it easier to make a less powerful bow, than to train the actress (much) more.


2. Tauriels bows back (the outer side of the arc) is carved hollow, which makes the arc less durable. Bows back should always have an unbroken layer of wood filament. But it is possible that this bow is not made of wood at all, rather from some artificial material.

3. In the first picture we see the tip of the arrow, which is ‘elvishly’ formed. Seems, if not a bad design, not very useful one. There have been asymmetrical arrowblade designs in history, but the curved blade does not do any good for the tip of the arrow.

4. Tauriel is also not pulling the string close to her cheek, which would be more proper method of drawing a bow, that makes aiming easier, since the arrow is nearer the archers eyes. She is also pulling the string with only two fingers instead of the usual three (in mediterranean release), and the fingers seem quite relaxed, which tells us further evidence that the bow is not very strong. Aiming may have been difficult for the actor in this shot, since it seems that the arrow is placed there afterwards with computer. The arrow should also go to the left side of the bow (from the perspective of the archer), not right as it is placed now, so it is more secure and doesn’t fall of easily.

5. Tauriels shooting stance is not optimal, rather strange indeed, why wouldn’t she stand while shooting? This posture is a thing which can be seen in many portrayals of female archers. That has more to do with sexism than the typical movie ‘coolness factor’. Even though a very slight form of sexism in this case, but still, the actress is instructed to pose in that stance, standing on one knee, which gives us the ‘sexy female archer pose’.

6. In the second picture Tauriel and Legolas are both shooting sideways, which is a very bad posture. They couldn’t draw full length if they tried, but seems that Tauriel isn’t even trying, but her bow still looks like it would’ve been drawn properly because it’s so overcurved.

7. She is also holding the arrow with her index finger, which is not a good idea. If released that way, the fletching (feathers) of the arrow will hit her finger, which both hurts and can distract the flight of the missile.


Good:

1. Apart from over-curveness, Tauriels bow is very nice looking and ‘elvish’ as it should – I particularly like how they gave her a recurve bow instead of the traditional-mediaeval-west-European-longbow, which Legolas and all the other characters in the Lord of The Rings have.

2. One other thing is very good in this portrayal of a film character: she has a hip quiver (holster for arrows), and not a back quiver, as does Legolas and every other bow wielding character in every movie ever filmed. Back quivers were historically used sometimes, but they were very rare, since it’s much quicker and easier to take an arrow from a hip quiver than from behind a shoulder. So a big thumbs up for prop maker there!


…


This post only deals with pictures released from the movies, not the archery action in the movies itself. I have seen the first two Hobbits, third one not yet, and I don’t have them on DVD to make a good film review at the moment. What I do remember is that the elves (although magical creatures) shoot unbelievably fast and have superhuman aim, which would not be possible in real life. But this is fantasy, so that is not an error.

Welcome!

Welcome to Crap Archery – a blog which doesn’t take itself too seriously but nitpicks with great devotion about all the errors, mistakes and misconceptions which rid the popular belief concerning everything archery related; bows, arrows, archers, techniques, etc.

Archery is frequently depicted on popular films, tv-shows, videogames, thousands of drawings around the Internet and in all kinds of other media. The portrayal though does leave much to hope for, since it’s accuracy, authenticity, practicality and overall usability mainly range from almost okay at best to utmost monstrosity at worst – and believe me – these horrendous depictions are as widespread phenomenon as overall lousiness of the most liked pictures on DeviantArt’s main page.

When I made a quick Google search for archery drawings I got tons of results which were wrong in so many ways, that I just had to start this blog in order to correct the view. Since practically every drawing had their bows and shooting postures wrong, that only leaves me thinking that none of the makers of those pictures have ever seen a real bow live, let alone held one in their hand or never ever released an arrow from the string.

I myself have of course held a bow in my hand, shoot with it many times, studied archery techniques and different bow types with much enthusiasm, have I even been making a longbow myself. I hope my work in this field with this blog will bear fruit so that future artists, moviemakers and game developers would understand better the basics of the function of a bow, how it is made and how shoot with. That would made drawings, games and movies, no matter are they intended to be realistic, modern, historical, fantasy or sci-fi, only better. Little accuracy and realism never do any harm to these productions.

Post scriptum:

I do not think that my little blog would change anything with movies or videogames, but at least it shows how ridiculously they usually portray archery, as well as they do with many other things, especially related to gear and tactics intended to be “historical”. And if I get at least some artists to pay more attention to detail and sources when drawing bows and archers, that’s always bonus!