How easy it is to find good reference pictures of archery in Google?

After searching for archery pictures from Baidu in the last post, I got thinking that surely it must be easier to find good reference photos from Google, right?

So I of course did the search.

First with "archer". But because of the popularity of the comedic series of the same name (should I watch it by the way, some say it's hilarious?), sadly finding any real archer pictures turns out impossible. Even with excluding words such as "series" and "episode" in the same Google search (You did know you can do it? Just put a minus sign before a word you want to exclude from search results, really helpful sometimes!).

Secondly with "archery". That turned out only modern Olympic archery photos, as expected.

Third time with "medieval archer". That search gave some good illustrations. Obviously not many photographs. Even a period source (medieval artwork) in the front page, which is good. But the first two results are quite bad and the quality changes significantly from picture to picture.

Next I tested with "historical archer", which yielded better results. Some historical photos of archers from Manchuria and Mongolia turned out, which are good reference for Eastern archery. Only one photo of a medieval longbowman reenactor. And our friend Lars Andersen in the second picture of the page! Unfortunately his bow there isn't very historical.

After that, a search with "bowman", which was a disappointment. Mainly random pictures of people with Bowman as their surname, as well as some pictures of Bard the Bowman from the Hobbit film trilogy. Other bowmen were from games, comics, and movies too.

Finally "longbowman" game some better results if one wants to draw aEuropean medieval archer. Longbows were pretty common in Europe in the middle ages, but of course other types of bows were used also. Use of the longbows also certainly didn't restrict to England or Wales, but they were used all Europe, and even the World. Results were varied also in this last search, with some inaccurate game pictures muddying the waters.

Turns out it wasn't so easy to find a good reference picture, preferably a photo, of a traditional (read = medieval European) archer using Google after all. Maybe reenactors should put much more pictures up there to give better picture search results. For the betterment of depiction of archery in public imagination as well as popular culture!

How to find good photo reference of archery in China?

I actually got interested after the last post, what kind of results the "Chinese Google" Baidu gives for "archer". Since Google is seriously restricted in some aspects in China. I don't for a second believe that those who can use Google in China couldn't use it to search pictures of archers, but many people might actually prefer Baidu for reason or another. And it's interesting to see what results that search engine gives, if some Chinese person would like to get some photo references for an archer drawing.

And the results are quite surprising.
First I searched with the English word "archer" in Baidu. It gave only images from some archer anime. Not good for reference.

Next I searched with a Chinese word 射箭运动员 which apparently means an archer. It gave photos of Olympic archers. Those are not good for reference if you would like to draw a historical archer, since modern sports bows don't like like traditional bows at all.

After that I used another Chinese word I got from an online dictionary for archer: 弓箭手. That gave a page full of very inaccurate fantasy drawings of archers. Not a single realistic one which could be used as a reference, and not a single photograph. All were these ridiculous game character concept art things.

So it turns out one does not easily found good photo reference of traditional archery in China, at least if you use Baidu! Or then I just don't know the right words to use in a Chinese language search.

Chinese archer girl (drawing) who has no idea how to hold a bow

The face of this character is obviously copied from either a photograph or another drawing (which in itself has most probably used a photo reference). The bow is certainly not copied from a life source. That is a bad thing. This is very bad. I mean very, very bad!

Mistakes:

1. This bow is horribly shaped, it does resemble a random tree branch more than a bow, an object a professional bowyer has spent days and weeks shaping into desired form.
2. Bowhand is nowhere near the middle of the bow. This is just ridiculously bad.
3. Three arrows, which are far away from the hand, impossible to shoot like this.
4. Bowstring goes over the bowhand, this is about the worst mistake you can make. You CANNOT shoot like this!
5. Very strange reverse grip of the bowstring.
6. Too big fletching and too near the end of the arrows. The stringhand shouldn't touch the fletching.
7. Where is the quiver or the rest of the arrows? If you have only three arrows, don't shoot them all at once!

A perfectly good picture of a face is ruined by the truly substandard work on everything related to archery in this drawing. How hard it would have been to just Google some pictures of real archers and use them as reference? The face is made with reference anyway. Oh, this is a Chinese drawing, maybe they don't have access to Google? Such a shame. But I still think there would be archer pictures in Baidu, aren't there?

Black clad archress

Black and white = cool? At least some people think so. Well, the face is in colour, since grey skin looks repulsing. No really, there is a condition (achromatopsia) that means people who have lost all their colour vision, so they really see everything in greyscale, and many of those people become depressed since human skin looks grey and disgusting to them.

It doesn't happen when you watch old black and white films of course, since you know it's only going to last a certain amount of time, but if you would have to live in a colourless world for the rest of your life...

Why I always get carried away before we get to archery mistakes, since this picture features an archer, and there are mistakes:

1. The bow is again ridiculously thick and ugly looking. Not a good design at all.
2. The bowstring is not attached to anything. A problem that could be corrected by looking at a real bow one. Or a picture of a real bow. Just once!
3. The fistmele, space between bow's handle and the string is too big.
4. Back quiver is bad quiver.

Bonus:
Left handedness. Maybe. Although the arrows are on the wrong shoulder if she's shooting left handedly.

Ranger posse with fiery arrows

A group of rangers, inspired by Lord of the Rings etc. a nice looking photo, but...

mistakes:

1. Why are all four of them aiming at different directions? Some to the ground, and some to the air. What kind of enemy could lurk in all directions, also in the sky? Oh, now I get it, they just posed like this to make the picture look more dramatic!
2. Fire arrows!!!! What is it that they need to use fire arrows for? Surely it won't be an enemy, since fire arrows weren't used against people. But maybe these are in a fantasy setting (certainly the costumes aren't what anybody in real history would have worn) and they have supernatural monsters as targets, that are vulnerable to fire? Anyway, these fire arrows lack arrowtips, which is bad since they won't stick to anything. It's a usual misconception to wrap the head of the arrow inside a burning matter, but this is not how real fire arrows were, or should be, made. Real fire arrows have a sharp tip, which forms a kind of small metallic cage for the burning matter.
3. Everyone's of course having a back quiver. Even with the cloaks. So that the quiver prevents the cloak from being used as it is meant to be used, to cover and shield the user from wind, cold, rain and other elements. But of course fantasy cloaks are only used because they look cool!
4. The form of the arms are not the optimal on this one. The arms should align even when aiming upwards.

Withering centaur

This is again one of those drawings, which's maker must have been quite young. Or then just suck at drawing... I mean not have had very much practice yet, sorry.

No offence, but on to the mistakes:

1. The bow is horribly shaped. It does not bend at all. The string is stretchu, which is one of the most "popular" mistakes made by drawers who have not seen real bows enough to know better.
2. The bow is angular in many places, which is a very bad design for a bow. Those angles are points were the bow might break. I drew a better version of the bow in red.
3. The arrow does not have fletching.
4. These arrows do have flethings, but they are placed in the quiver (which is a hip quiver, good!) on the wrong direction. They should point forwards, not backwards, if the archer wants to get them off of the quiver easily.

P.S.
It would be a hip quiver for a human, but this is a foreleg atrophy suffering centaur, so wouldn't it be a back quiver after all?

Bodypaint elf woman

I wouldn't put my name under a picture like this. But some people have no shame. Or then they just have a different kind of mentality towards professional work. They have to feed their families, right?

I should've put a NSFW in the title, but I didn't. Since I don't believe in trigger warnings. They make people wimps who can't take anything without breaking.

So, this softcore pornographic image ("But it's ART when it has bodypaint!") also contains mistakes. And I'm not talking about just the plastic elf ears:

1. Since there are bigger mistakes. Like this isn't a bow at all. This is a piece of wood shaped vaguely like a bow. It's too short and doesn't thin towards the ends. The string is stretchy, obviously because the "bow" doesn't bend.
2. The stance is all wrong. The arms don't align at all, stringarms elbow is too low etc. Numerous mistakes.
3. This is a very strange grip. That means it's wrong.
4. The bowhand is also wrong. The arrow should be on top of the fist, not between middle and ring fingers.
5. The stick that plays the arrow doesn't have a tip, and it's fletching is too far back, interfering with the stringhand.
6. Holding an ugly serrated fantasy dagger (or any other weapon) in your bow hand is not a good idea. However there has been a practice (in Persia and maybe other neighbouring areas) to hold a scimitar (shamshir) in hand while shooting. But that is the stringhand, never the bowhand. A quity specialised technique, of which the people involved in making this picture come true would have never guessed existed. But interesting nonetheless.

Zhang Jingchu from Jadesoturi (Jade Warrior)

This picture (and others from the same source) widely circulate the Internet (yes I still write it with a capital I, since it's a proper noun) with a caption that says this to be an Inuit archer.

No.

This is a picture of Chinese actress  Zhang Jingchu from the filming of a (first and only)  Finnish-Chinese kung fu film Jadesoturi (Jade Warrior), from 2006.

So she's Chinese, not Inuit, an actress, not a huntress, this costume is clearly a movie costume (nobody wears a corset in traditional societies!), and the place is Finland, not the North Pole or something.

Anybody who knows archery can also tell that this woman doesn't know archery.

Mistakes are:

1. The position of the bow is wrong. She holds it a bit too high from the center which makes the bow tilt backwards. I've drawn the correct position of the bow, where it should be.
2. She holds the arrow with index finger of her bow hand. A beginners mistake, once again.

Backwards shooting bipedal canine

Oh my God! Wait a minute, I'm an atheist, I cannot say that. Oh my Darwin... no doesn't work so well.
So, oh your God! This is horrible!
What can I even say about this. This is in the realm of furry fandom (Grrrrrrrr, and that is not the sound those "wolfkin" make, it's me shivering in disgust!). I don't want to talk about furries, they make me sick.

But let's talk about archery mistakes instead:

1. This string I've highlighted cannot go like this. But there was no room to draw it otherwise. The drawing is wrong, the bow cannot be shot in that position.
2. The arrow would fall off, since there's nothing to keep it there. It could be kept there with the thumb, but the thing is not doing it here.
3. The bow is horrible and ugly, why does it have all those bumps?

Bonus:
On the other hand shooting backwards (to the direction you are coming from) is possible. The horse archers often did it, and it's called a Parthian shot (after a seminomadic people who fought against Romans in the ancient times and used this technique in great success (if you want to learn more, check out the battle of Carrhae)). However this is not a horse archer and I see no point shooting backwards when you are on your feet. It's just a worse stance. It's necessary on horseback, since you cannot turne the horse around quickly. But there's no point of doing it here, somebody just thought it looked cool. No, it does not.

Cliché barbarian woman, guess if she has blue facepaint?

This is technically a well made drawing, but the subject and the execution are very clichéd and boring. Barbarian woman archer? Rags and fur pieces? Spikes and horns? Skull decoration? Blue warpaint? Really?

Mistakes, there are also:

1. This is not the right place for the arrow, it will fall off. It should of course be on the top of the fingers of the bowhand, be it on the right or left side of the bow.
2. Fletching too back on the arrow, and too many fingers grasping the bowstring.
3. The bow doesn't bend properly, now the string stretches, which is not right.
4. You should at least turn your head to where you are shooting, it helps aiming tremendously. Looking from the corner of your eye is not so good.
5. Quiver, arrows, anywhere?

Chibi elf with twisted body

I hate manga. I shouldn't say this, but I just did. There might be some good manga comics (manga = comics, I know!), but I hate this chibi style. I usually associate manga with chibi style (I do know there are other styles too, but they all have unnaturally big eyes), and I just hate it.

I hate this picture, not just because it's annoying chibi style, but because it represents archery so poorly.

Mistakes:

1. The whole stance is ludicrous, nobody shoots like this. The pelvis is turned forwards, even though it should be pointing sideways.
2. More of the wrong stance, the string arm should be at level with the other arm and the arrow, the right elbow should be pointing backwards.
3. This arrowtip weighs a ton and don't fly anywhere. Why would you also tie a ribbon to the arrow?
4. Keeping the index finger of the bow hand straight, to "guide" the arrow or something. A beginners mistake. Do people think it looks cool or something?
5. Bad quiver. That means a back quiver.

Fantasy 17th century female gladiator ranger?

I've never seen anybody standing like that. Not even in the gentlemen's club we visited in Portugal at the start of the summer. That would've been the place I would've expected to see women standing like that, but they didn't. Maybe the draughtsman of this picture hasn't been in a gentlemen's club. I would recommend going into one. But not a one in Jyväskylä, that was not so great told my friend who lived there (in the small city in Finland, not in the club of course).

By the way, why has this woman covered her forehead, right shoulder and boob, and her left hand in armour, but not anything else? Having thick steel gauntlets is not beneficial to archery by any means. And that metallic peaked cap is seriously interfering with vision it seems. Vision is quite crucial in archery, just saying...

Anyway, to the mistakes:

1. This bow is in the category "so ugly it couldn't be recognised as a bow if it wouldn't be held like that by a person."
2. This huge space is called a fistmele. And it shouldn't be this huge. It should be about one's fist and up pointing thumb distance, not much more.
3. Where are her arrows and quiver? They are nowhere to be seen.

P.S.
Those 17th century men's cavalry boots didn't actually have stilettos on them even though they did have heels.

Another one of those damned elves

I'm quite tired of these clichéd fantasy drawings of archer elves (and of clichéd fantasy drawings in general). They all try to be so dynamic that the character just can't stand still while shooting. They always have to lean heavily on one direction (not to the horrible band I hope), bend their knee, or some other bovine excrement. This elf is not falling from a tree at least, so maybe that can be counted as a good thing?

Mistakes:

1. This bow is horrible. It seems to be made of wood with metal parts. No bow was ever made like this, since it doesn't make any sense. It's also way too heavy and way too thick to actually work.
2. This elf is not holding his bow, it will fall off from his hand immediately after this picture was taken (I didn't know they had cameras in Middle Earth?)
3. It looks like the arrow is behind the bowstring even though it is released. This is impossible.
4. Back quiver. I should start to call it bad quiver.
5. Arrows in the quiver don't have enough room for the nock, the fletching is right at the end. Which is not right. It's wrong.

Bonus:
Is lefthandedness more common in elves?

Glamour archery, not very glamorous

These are some glamour or fashion photgraphy shots of fashion models holding bows and arrows. Obviously they've never held a bow before and neither had the photographer or anyone else who was present. These are so bad that it hurts my eyes, glamour is million miles away from these photos. The looks and stances are not gracious, they look painful and deformed! You can even break your body if you shoot as wrong as these models, so don't do it.

The first to photos have exactly the same mistakes:
1. The line I've drawn there should be straight. Straight! These are like zig-zagged spirals. The string arm (right arm) should be much higher, parallel to the bow arm. Elbows of these women are pointing downwards, when they should be pointing straight to the back. All the power for the draw has now to be generated with the arm, which is a waste of energy. Instead the power should be generated from the bigger back muscles, as well as the arms (both of them).
2. The whole body of both of these women is twisted ina a deformed position. The pelvis is facing forward, when it should be facing sideways. The upper body, especially shoulders have the same problem. It is not possible to shoot like this. Why are they also leaning backwards so much, it doesn't look glamorous?
3. The third picture has some other mistakes. There are lines already, so I didn't have to draw them on the picture. The arrow should go on the same line as the arms. Now it does not. It's impossible to aim if the arrow and arms do not line. The grip of the arrow is very gentle, looks like this bow is nota bow but just a stick that bends and a string attached to it. The "arrow" (another stick) is also missing fletching, and its tip cannot be seen. Pelvis of this bow holding photo model is also towards front, which is wrong, as said already.

Myranda from Game of Thrones

This is Myranda from Game of Thrones. Good series, was better when it was still based on the books, now everything happens too quickly, characters teleport from the other corner of the world to another in the change of the scene and people get resqued from seemingly certain death in the last second.

Anyway, Myranda here thinks you should look in the line of the arrow you are shooting. No, you don't need to do it. You shouldn't do it. Hold your arrow on the cheek, not in the line of the eye. Sometimes arrows are shot even lower, from shoulder level, especially in Eastern archery. So having the arrow line with your eye is not necessary, it can even be detrimental if you learn how to shoot like this. Since you have to learn how to not shoot like this afterwards. There's no benefits in holding an arrow this high, it just messes up your concentration when you think you should use the arrow as a guide. You shouldn't, you should just know where the arrow is pointing and where it will fly. You will learn this with a little bit of practice. Practice that the actress of Myranda sadly hadn't had time or resources to have.
She also bends her torso backwards which is not a stance you want to have.
Also could be that she doesn't use her back muscles to do the draw, instead pulling the string with only her arms strength.
And the ubiquitous back quiver is of course present.

Keep your bow arm straight!

I have something to say about this photo, which is photographically quite decent (although strange place to focus, instead of the face or the arrow tip for example).

The form of the bow arm is not good on her. It goes like a zig-zag. It should ba as straight as possible. Simple as that. The wrist and elbow are now bent inwards, which results in the forearm being too close to the bowstring. That's why beginners need those bracers on the inside of their bowarm, since they bend their wrist and elbow in a way that exposes the inside of the forearm to the moving string. That's bad technique, and won't be corrected by using a bracer. Instead I embrace not using a bracer and soon an archer learns not to bend the forearm in the way of the string. Pain teaches.

There is very little amount of historical archer's bracers found. If everybody would have used them, there should be way more. Also they are depicted very scarcely on period artwork. They were sometimes used, but weren't widespread by any means. Since most archers knew how to shoot without hitting their forearm with every release.

Gothic Jungle Book Pocahontas

This picture is like Jungle Book meets Pocahontas in a gothic setting. Where are all the colours (of the wind)? Bagheera here is black, and also colourless are the dead looking Grandmother Willows. The woman is just about to slip from the tree brach se is sitting(?) on. Wardrobe choices seems to to concern her, but who wouldn't want to dress in a mini skirt and a tight leather top that can "malfunction" at any time, while presumably going to a hunt in the forest and climbing trees? There is also a very specific little wind just in her black hair, and another that blows right next to it, to her hood, but in the opposite direction, must be magic!

Not very many archery mistakes in this drawing, since the woman is not shooting. When shooting, there are numerous things that can be wrong, but when just holding the bow, it is easier to get things right, since there are lesser amount of things to notice.

Still, there are mistakes:
1. The fistmele, the space between the bow and bowstring at the middle is too wide. It means the bow is weak. Nobody would use a weak bow for hunting or for war. Only children use weak bows when they start practising archery. And bows can be made weak without having a huge fistmele.
2. Quiver on the back. It would be easier to list all the times I've seen a hip quiver in modern archer drawings. Can't think of any at the moment.
3. The quiver is also on the wrong shoulder, if you would like to get arrows from there.

Medusa drawing (Harryhausen style)

This drawing is copied from the late and great Ray Harryhausen's Medusa from Clash of the Titans (the 1981 version, not the 2010 remake, which is not of course on par with the original). The Harryhausen Medusa didn't have any clothes, but the young man who has drawn this has been shy about drawing naked breasts (I know the feeling, I've been at that point myself), but he has been titillated enough to draw the nipples showing through the cloth. So what's the point of drawing the cloth in the first place then?

Anyway, to the archery mistakes:

1. This bow is asymmetrical, and not on purpose.
2. Bowstring goes over the arm, which is of course wrong by all measurable standards.
3. Reverse grip with four fingers, instead of three.
4. Another mistake in the same circle, the string is bend significantly inside the fist.
5. This arrow is huge, almost the size of a javelin. It's just too heavy (especially with such a huge tip).
6. Index finger over the arrow, a beginners mistake.
7. Quiver on the back.
8. Arrows on the quiver are lacking the nocking space between the fletching and the end of the arrows.

Bonus:
Left-handedness, definitely not on purpose. Medusa in the film was right handed.

Three arrows shooting manga woman

It almost feels bad to rip these drawings to pieces. I know that young people have drawn these, and I have drawn my entire life myself, and I know how bad it would feel to read a critique like that. But I hope the person who has drawn this is a grown up adult now (since I think this is a pretty old picture), and can handle the critique. Since the critique I present in this blog is never aimed towards a person behind a drawing, and usually not even at the artistic quality (or the lack thereof) of the drawing, but usually only towards how archery is depicted in that particular drawing. Since that is the point of this blog. To correct all the archery related mistakes in popular culture. And even when the work to be done is monumental in nature, it won't stop me trying to fix things.

So, mistakes in this drawing are:
1. What is this bow made of? Surely not of wood, since this contruction with spikes and sholes wouldn't last a second in real life. It also looks very ugly.
2. The bow tapers to a series of spikes in the end, and wouldn't be durable enough for use. The string is also not attached to anything.
3. Three arrows shot at once. This is not how it could be done. All those arrows are pointing in different directions, and even though the middle arrow might be possible to be shot, the other arrows interfere with the shooting significantly. It's also a waste of arrows. The arrowtips are also horrible. The thumb of the bow hand is on the wrong side of the middle arrow.
4. All the arrows nock to the exact same point on the bowstring, which is impossible. They also lack fetching altogether. And all the arrows are held between the middle and ring finger of the archer, that is one finger too low.
5. Four fingered grip, a beginners mistake. The bowstring is deep inside the fist, which is impossible in real life.
6. One of the most significant mistakes in this picture is that the string is way too short for this bow. This bow cannot shoot arrows at all. The string is pulled back maybe five centimeters, which isn't nearly enough to fly those arrows anywhere. The bow is drawn way too curved, that's why there hasn't been room for the string to pull back more.
7. Quiver on the back. This simply wasn't done.
8. The quiver on the back that simply wasn't done is also hugely too long. It is completely impossible to take arrows from a back quiver which is that long and sits that high on the back. Your arm just can't reach to take the arrows out of it.
9. Now the arrows on the quiver (which are also longer than the arrows being shot) do have fletching on them, but the fletchings are fuzzy and there isn't any space for fingers to grip the arrow at the nock. The nocks can't even be seen under all the fuzz.
10. The character isn't even looking anywhere near the direction she's supposedly shooting.

Bonus:
She's left handed, most probably due to a poor understanding of archery, and not on purpose.

Theater production in Finland with bad archery

Today I saw on the side of a bus an advertisement for a Finnish theater production, called Talvisirkus Rakkaus ("Winter circus Love"), and on it was a picture of a woman shooting with a bow. Or rather pretending to be shooting with a bow.

It is frustrating to see all the time archery is depicted, that it is depicted wrongly. Apparently no one in the production knew how to shoot and no one bothered to ask about someone who would have known. I remember reading that earlier (early in the last century and before) actors were trained in all kinds of physical activities, including riding a horse, swordfighting and archery. But of course everything was better before.

Mistakes:
1. In picture A a womanis holding the bowstring with three fingers, but not holding the arrow at all. The arrow should of course be nocked between index and middle fingers, when shooting with the Mediterranean style. If the arrow is not controlled by the string hand, it will fly whereever, if it will even keep on the string while being released.

2. In picture B (which is taken from a gif) is probably the worst "grip" of the bowstring I've ever seen. The same woman is holding the string with the tip of her index finger. It is not possible to shoot like this, since she won't have enough strength to pull that string (even though the bow seems quite powerless).

3. In picture C (behind the scenes material) the director of the play is demonstrating (!) how to shoot with a bow. This is sad to hear, since she is neither holding her arrow between the index and middle fingers of her string hand, instead the arrow is just placed on the top of the string hand. This is not right, and you should not demonstrate how to shoot, if you don't yourself know how to do it.

For the next time, please ask someone who actually practices archery (there are lots of clubs all over Finland) how to do it. It's not that hard.