Anorectic arthritis elf

This generic fantasy elf female, who has a body of a standardized anorectic mannequin, eyes as blank and face as emotionless as her plastic equivalent, is also shooting wrong. The maker of this picture is to blame of course, since he hasn't used any reference at all.


Mistakes:

1. Left handedness. As told many times before, not a mistakes if intended, but here, certainly not.
2. Sideways shooting. The string touches the flank of the archer thus making inefficient shot.
3. Ridiculous bow. Not as ridiculous as some else, but still a stupid design. What are those glowing green things? And what for as these spikes? Did the maker of this picture intend that this bow could be used as a melee weapon too? Well, that's a bad idea, which can break the bow.
4. Back quiver. Enough said of this already.
5. In the same circle, another mistake, not room on the shaft of the arrows for fingers to grasp behind the fletching. Also fletching could be longer.
6. Very bad posture and stance. Does she have an arthritis on her knees or what? Is this supposed to be a sexy pose? Of course it is, but it fails to be anything else than ridiculous. What's with the length of the legs too? One could argue that this is an elf, but these same boys draw those giraffe legs on human women also. Anyway, a good shot would require much steadier stance.

Red manga archer woman

This science-fiction-ish, more fiction, not science at all, manga archer woman has a very stupid bow.


Mistakes:

1. What are these things growing out of her bow? They are completely ridiculous and ugly, and seriously decrease the capability of the bow. The maker of this picture thought that they would look cool, but they don't. Very stupid indeed.
2. These two spikes protruding horribly out of the bow interfere with the line of the bowstring. The string will damage every time it hits these spikes while released. That is, every time. Until it breaks. Very very stupid design.
3. The string goes over the arm. Now the woman is not shooting in this picture, but why the string would still go there. Does this imply that she would also shoot the string on the wrong side of her bow arm? I hope not, since then this drawing sucks in a whole new lower level.
4. She's holding three arrows at once. Not impossible at all, many speed shooters have done that. Are she going to shoot more than one arrow at once? I hope not! But the arrows lack their fletching completely. Not good for accuracy.
5. And she doesn't have a quiver at all. Is that why she's holding the three arrows in her hand? Probably so. Not a wise idea to go to battle or hunting without a quiver, only carrying arrows in your hand. Thus you can only bring a handful, which is not enough.

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).

Green elf archer woman almost falling down

What's wrong with this elf woman archer? Other than she's very clichéd fantasy figure, has a dislocated hip and is soon going to fall from a tree without proper footing. At first glance it might seem okay, but even a few seconds more looking at it exposes it's flaws.


Mistakes:

1. The bow does not quite bend enough. I have invented a good rule of thumb for that: either sketch or then just imagine a rectangle around the bow, the bows ends should bend to the middle of the upper and lower frames of the rectangle. It's as easy as that, doesn't matter which shape the bow is.
2. The archer here is using only two fingers for a Mediterranean grip. Proper grip utilises three fingers.
3. The arrow she's shooting doesn't have fletching at all. Maybe the maker of this picture didn't want them to ruin the sight of her lips. But in reality, it would. Just draw them. Lips don't show.
4. The arrows which are on her back do have fletching. But the fletching looks terrible, they're apparently made of grass, or then the feathers are dyed green and damaged very much. They're also too back on the arrow shaft, no room for fingers to grasp the arrow.
5. The arrows are on her back and not in a hip quiver.
6. The arrow goes from the wrong side of the bow. It should be on the left.
7. Keeping the index finger straight is a beginners mistake. Completely unnecessary.

Tortured female anorectic leftie redhead Jew archer

Now back to the horrible stuff! Can't be without awfulness for a very long time, can't you?
This is a perfect example of all kinds of clichés and mistakes put into one picture. The boy who has drawn this, has had no reference of bows, arrows, archers or women at hand, only a Wacom pen in his right hand and his little willie in left. That is why the result is what it is. Can't you people just stop this nonsense and start to use real reference? I'm begging you! No I'm not, I'm just mocking you, since you deserve it!


Mistakes (amount of them must be a record thus far!):

1. The archer woman shoots left handed. In a picture with this much mistakes it's unintentional. So it's a mistake.
2. The bow (which has some stupid and unnecessary studded metal rings around it) does not bend! You people should know by now that it is the bow which bends, while the string doesn't stretch. But of course this bow doesn't bend, because it's limbs are made of metal! And thick one at that. Yes, there were some metal bows in existence, but they were very thin in order to bend. This is not.
3. The string doesn't go anywhere near the end of the bow. Here's a free suggestion to the maker of this picture: next time draw the whole bow, even if it's not going to fill in your final picture frame. Thus you can make sure that the string would actually attach to the bow arc, and not to the  toes of the archer. This is not even hard since when drawing with computer you can easily draw over the picture area.
4. Four finger Mediterranean grip is wrong. It should use only three fingers. Four finger grip is an amateur mistake.
5. The drawn string and arrow are not anywhere near the place there should be. A quick tip: it should be where the red ring points, the mouth area of the archer. Thus she would be able to even aim. And yes, it goes in the way of those sexually opened buffy lips.
6. How do you explain that the arrow holds here? It flows on thin air! It should be on the other side of the bow, of course. This may be the most common archery mistake of all time.
7. Why is she holding her thumb upwards? Is she liking this picture? Since I sure as Hades don't!
8. Even more ridiculous of the fact that the arrow floats in the air makes this mistake, the overly large arrow tip, which would weight a ton and not fly properly anywhere.
9. The arrow also lacks proper fletching (those three feathers at the back end of the arrow you know?)
10. What is this? It reminds the leather strip some of the Jews roll around their forearm when asking their god favours. But as an archery bracer, no, it doesn't work.
11. The form of the archer is so bad it would be very difficult to shoot in this position. This over-sexualised shape is straight from the catalogue of "How to draw fantasy females which boys can drool at" (I'm going to think it really exists, since this is so common). Maybe she is forced permanently in this curved back position, since she has the metallic unbendable and immovable torture device hammered on her? Poor thing. But fortunately she won't suffer for long, since she's dying of anorexia (and anemia, based on her colourless complexion).
12. No quiver anywhere to be seen. An archer should be able to carry arrows somewhere, have you heard about that? And the proper place for a quiver is the waist belt, not the back of the archer.

Good:

This section is closed for the time being, since I have lost my faith in humanity because of all these mistakes. Shame on you!

War of the arrows (Korean movie)

This is from a Korean movie I just watched with my friends. It's called "War of the arrows", or then "Arrow, the ultimate weapon", of which the first one is much better as a name, but I don't know which one is more accurate translation of Choi-jong-byeong-gi Hwal (Google translate didn't help at all).

As a movie, it's pretty good, but as an archery film, superb! Never before have I seen so much, so good and so interesting archery in a movie! This is almost like Lars Andersen coming to the big screen!

And which is also great, is that the archers are now in the main role, which rarely happens in movies. Usually it's always the swordsman who gets all the glory, while archers are just extras shooting some shower of arrows at the beginning of a battle. In reality archers were much more important than that, they continued to shoot enemies throughout the battle, and not with arrow rains, but with direct shots.

I will start with the good parts, since there are many of those in this movie:

1. Mongolian release. I have not seen very many Asian archery movies (many kung-fu movies have archers in them), so the usual one to be seen in films set in Europe is the Mediterranean release. There is probably not the single best way to draw the bow, I happen to like Mediterranean more, since it is easier and don't require excessive equipment. Mongolian release needs a thumb ring, otherwise the archers thumb will become sore very quickly. Anyway, Mongolian release is done right in almost all scenes of this movie.
2. The arrow is on the right side of the bow. It's both right and right, since it's right to keep the arrow on the right side (and not left) of the bow, while shooting in Asian style. Asian people's all seem to keep arrow on the right and use their thumb to keep it in place there. It allows faster re-shooting, as Andersen demonstrated. Europeans keep the arrow on the left side of the bow.
3. Asian side quiver. They used their arrows "on the back" yes, but not over the shoulder, where the arrows are hard to draw from. Instead their quivers were designed to keep the arrows only from their tip area, but still firmly in place, so they could be tilted to almost horizontal way.
4. Keeping an arrow in the bow hand. Usually in movies people only carry arrows in their quivers, but in this scene the main character has one more arrow in his bow hand. It's faster to shoot from there. Even faster woud be from the string hand (Andersen again...)
5. Use of special arrows. This is called "half-pounder" in the movie, and it has a chisel like tip. Broad flat blades were used in arrow tips for different purposes. This is used like a "super arrow" in the movie, which I could criticize a bit, since it seems too powerful, shattering small tree trunks! But still, it's very nice to see some special arrows in films, since we always get only the regular ones, and 'fire arrows', which were more sparsely used than movies makes you think.
6. THIS ONE! Fantastic! The main hero shoots with broken arrows! He makes an arrow guide from a bamboo stalk, and uses it to shoot half arrows. The arrow guide is tied to his thumb, so it doesn't fly when he releases the arrow. Superb!

This movie cannot escape mistakes entirely:

1. The main character shoots sideways many times. You can clearly see where his arrow string touches his clothes. It's not very good form. He also shoots the bow vertically too.
2. In this picture the main antagonist has a poor form. He uses the Mediterranean release, but with four fingers. So it's wrong for a Mediterranean, and also wrong for an Asian. Most other times he uses the Mongolian grip properly. The arrow's fletching inside this same circle is also damaged to the point that there are almost none feathers left.
3. The arrow is on the right side of the antagonists bow, but he keeps it in place with both thumb and index finger. That will hurt the index finger, if released. I admit that it is harder to keep on the right side of the bow, just with a thumb. Maybe this picture is from the early stages of filming and the actor got better over filming time?
4. Back quivers. Most characters in this film have them. Almost all soldiers carry a bow anyway. But back quivers were not used like this, not in Asia either. The protagonist has a better one.

Summa summarum:

This is a very good archery movie, and I recommend it to everyone even remotely interested in archery, history, warfare or Asian cultures in general.