That's not the way to string a bow

 

A Spanish (probably they want to call themselves Catalonians) historical reenactment group called Barcino Oriens who try to recreate imperial Roman army and civilian life in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE does a very poor job of representing archery. And when I say very poor, I mean absolutely abysmal.

It should be a crime to teach something if you have absolutely no clue of what you are talking about. This man here shows how he thinks a bow is stringed. This is not how it's done. That is utterly and completely wrong and he is plain ignorant about it. It is totally impossible to shoot that way, and if it would be a real bow (I mean not made of plastic), and if he somehow got the string to keep in place while drawing, the bow could break. Fortunately the string will slip off of the bow nocks if he tried to pull the string that way.

I of course commented on that, since it was on Facebook, and I like to educate people. The answer was as usual, hostile:

"Imposible! It's only one way this!" is barely an understandable sentence. I know their native language is Catalan, and not English, but neither is mine. The laughing smiley (I heard the diginatives call them emojis nowadays, but I still call them smileys) is by my (bow shooting) friend.

I patiently gave them an explanation in pictures, since if we don't have a common language, that should work:

I just posted it, so I'm now waiting for their answer, probably tomorrow we'll see. Maybe I'll update this post, but probably I have better things to do.

I don't want to comment on the quality of their reenactment, since it's not the subject of this blog (maybe I'll start another one in the future?), but let's just say that if Catalonia did separate from Spain, we would not lose much.

UPDATE

They deleted their picture without any comment. I hope they learned their lesson.

UPDATE

They answered me later in Facebook, and it seems that they learned how to string a bow. Nice to see that I taught somebody to do it right.

Archery in Trine game series

Today I want to write about something which is not just a horrible picture on the Internet. Instead it's a game series I actually like a lot. Trine is a fantastic platformer video game, which is made in my own country, Finland. The game features three as-generic-as-you-can-imagine fantasy characters; a knight, a thief, and a wizard. The knight is fat and wears a shining armour, big sword and a red cape, the wizard looks like a Lego wizard (blue Gandalf) with Fu Manchu moustache and the thief is a cross of Altaïr from Assassins Creed and an oriental belly-dancer.

My favourite character of them is the thief, not because I like to watch her polygons, but because she is the most fun to play with, jumping and flying around with a grappling hook like a female Tarzan. She also has a bow to shoot enemies with. I've played the first two games of the series through, haven't yet bought the third one, and I just heard that a fourth one is also coming out, hopefully later this year.

Now I want to talk about the thief and her archery. Mainly from the concept art and cover images of the games, since arhcery is done relatively well in the games themselves, although the bow is hopelessly underpowered compared to any real life bow.

The first picture (in the top of this post) is the cover of the first Trine game (2009). The cover art is not of high quality, which is typical for Finnish games, unfortunately.

Mistakes: The bow is way too small. You could possibly make a bow this short, but it would need to be a lot thinner to be able to be bent with human arms. This is the size of an arc of a crossbow. If a bow is this short and this thick it would need some mechanism to be pulled, like a crossbow has. It is way too short to be a working bow. The bowstring loses some potential of the already very short bow by tying itself not in the ends of the arc, but several inches inward from the nocks. Looks like the maker of that bow also didn't know how the bostring should be attached so it is wrapped around the bow limbs many times, which is certainly not how it is done. One look at a decent bow woul've fixed these errors. (Also if the bow would be this short and this thick, so that it has the power similar to a crossbow, the bowstricg would need to be thrice thicker, otherwise it would just snap)

Russian version of Trine for Linux. This represents Russian game art, which is obviously of higer quality to Finnish one. They have although "localised" the characters to fit more Russian tastes. The knight being not fat anymore and infinitely more handsome than the original, and his armour being more realistic. The thief being even more sexualised than in the original, the facecover changed to a see-through cloth like oriental belly dancers have (at least in our fantasies), and her clothes decorater with Russian patterns. The wizard has been given more serious look compared to the comical character he was in the original, and he has also been dressed in a gown resempling a bit Eastern European cossack coats. All the characters' facial features look Russian to me. Interesting details all.

Good: The bow of the thief has been made more realistic, being long enough to be actually usable. The decorations are kind of elvish, from Legolas' bow from Lord of the Rings most probably. Another good thing is that she has an archers bracer only in her bow hand.

The cover of Trine 2 (2011). Mistakes:

1. The thief shoots a fire arrow (which she can in the games), even though there is no purpose. Fire arrows were never shot against people (or trolls) on purpose. They were used to light buildings on fire, and were very rarely used, and only in sieges.

2. The more problematic thing in this picture is her bow though. It does not bend. It looks like a bow looks when the string has not been pulled at all. This is a rubber band stick, not a working bow. It might shoot an arrow a few meters like a rubber band could, but it is not a weapon of any kind.

3. The thief has been given bracers to both forearms, without any reason.

The cover for Trine 3 (2015). Mistakes:

1. The bow is now bigger than before, and more recurved, which is okay, but it is too thick. It should be altogether thinner and then also thin towards to ends of the limbs. This would be very hard to pull. It also looks uneven and unfinished, as if somebody just put decorations on a random tree branch.

2. What's the purpose of those bronze elements? To my knowledge no bow ever had these kind of huge bronze elements. They would make it unnecessary heavy, especially the bronze pieces on the end of the bow limbs.

3. In this other picture the bowstring goes way too close to the handle of the bow. The distance between the bow arc and the string in the middle is called a fistmele, and in longbows it should be approximately the length of the users fist and thumb combined. In recurve boughs however the distance is even greater. This is way too small and makes the bow unnecessarily difficult to use.

4. The thief has bracers on both forearms.

Cover for Trine 4 (2019).
The writer and art director for this game are women (I actually know the writer of this game), which can be seen in the changed appear of the thief character. She is de-sexualised, cleavage is gone, and she has been given pants under her openly flowing white robe. Sadly the bow has not improved, quite the contrary.

Mistakes:

1. The bow now has a useless metallic arc "protecting" the hand holding the bow. This king of arc was never built in a real bow, because it's both useless and harmful to the performance of the bow. It can also interfere with the flight of the arrow.

2. In the cover picture the thief is shooting in Mediterranean grip with three fingers it seems, which is correct, but the arrow is on the right side of the bow, which is extremely rare, although done occasionally in Europe. But when the arrow is on the right side of the bow, it rests on the thumb of the bow hand, not on the index finger.

3. In the gameplay itself the thief shoots with a Mediterranean grip but only uses two fingers two draw. This is not good, she should use three. The arrow is also misplaced on top of all the drawing fingers, when in reality it should be between the index and middle fingers of the drawing hand. Here the arrow goes on the left side of the bow though.

4. The "bracers" in this game feature the grappling hook mechanisms she uses for climbing, but it makes a very bad bracers used for archery. The left bracer has some metal rod in the inside of the forearm, which would severely interfere with the bowstring and could even snap it in two (even that overly thick bowstring we see here). That's very bad.

Good:
The main good thing I can say about the archery in this series is that the thief uses a hip quiver, and not a back quiver, throughout all the games. This is more believable and works great!

Green arrow comes in female version too

I'm not going to complane about the bow this time, since it is a modern compound bow, and even if it looks stupid, so they do in real life, and it fits this modern archer character.
There are other mistakes though:

1. The arm and elbow point too high up, it should follow the line of the arrow.

2. This grip is wrong. It is kind of like a Mongolian thumb grip, but the thumb should be under the arrow, not on top of it. Also it seems like she is pinching the bowstring between her thumb and index finger, which is not how this grip works. Instead she should draw the string with the thumb only, and wrap the index finger around the thumb, not around the string, to keep it in place. This is a result of not properly understanding how this grip works.

3. Back quiver, as usual. The arrows seem to even be on a wrong shoulder, so almost impossible to get them from the quiver.

4. She is not looking at the right direction, there where the arrow is going. Instead she has turned her head towards the viewer of this picture. It is a standard measure of draughtsmen to intentionally or unintentionally distort the proper shooting stance in order to make the woman archer look at the viewer, or look more beautiful, or to not cover her face with the arrow hand. It's still wrong.

Why would you use a cloak for warmth, but not cover your chest with a shirt?

Mistakes:

1. This bow doesn't bend enough. From this angle it looks like it's bending, but it is the same shape which it would be when relaxed. When the string is pulled, it should of course bend.

2. The draw is not full, since there is another 20 cm of arrow shaft coming in front of the bow. This is wasted completely. One should pull the arrow as close to the arrowtip as possible to get a full powered shot.

3. She is not even looking into the direction she is supposedly aiming at. The head is not turned properly to the direction of the arrow.

4. The Mediterranean grip shouldp roperly be done with three fingers, not two like here. I'm tired of reporting the same mistakes again and again, but they never learn.

5. The arrow doesn't seem to have fletching at all. That would make its flight more unstable.

6. There is no quiver or other arrows anywhere to be seen.

Also: nobody would shoot while their falcon sits on their shoulder. The drawing hand will move significantly when shooting, and the falcon distrats the shot (and the shot distracts the falcon).

Camouelfage?

Is this elf wearing camouflage skin paint? Don't they know that the point of camouflage is to camouflage, and not just to look cool, and in order to camouflage it has to cover all the skin, not just parts of it! Or maybe it's a bizarre Michael Jacksonesque skin disease? I hope she doesn't molest any forest kids.

Mistakes:

1.The bow doesn't bend. It's always a mistake.

2. The string is not attached anywhere near the end of the bow where it should terminate.

3.The bowstring goes OVER the bow arm! This is one of the worst mistakes you can draw in an archery picture! Stop this, immediately!!!

4. The grip doesn't grip the bowstring, that's BAD!

5. The fletching of this arrow goes way too back, it shoudn't touch the string.

6. This arrow is way too thin to be used in war or hunting. Such a thin arrows are only used in competitive shooting when they have to shoot as far as possible. It lacks all the power though, and cannot easily kill anything.

7. No quiver or other arrows anywhere.

8. The bow is held sideways.

Not such a smooth criminal at all.

You should've made the Moon smaller in order to make the bow bend realistically

I absolutely hate computer graphics imagery. It's so unbearably ugly beyond any curse words!

Mistakes:

1. This bow is ridiculous. In a bad way. It doesn't bend, but the string streches. How many times I have to tell you NO, don't draw it like this ever again!!!

2. The arrow is way too long, which results in a ridiculous overdraw.

3. The fletching is awful, is too far on the back of the arrow so it touches the bowstring. Bad.

4. This arm is bent unnaturally due to the length of the arrow. The mediterranean grip is also wrongly done with only two fingers instead of three.

5. No quiver, no other arrows.

6.Left hand shooting, I assume unintentionally.

More like Duplolas with these skills

I'm getting sick of these Legolas rip-offs! Straight to the mistakes:

1. This bow is ridiculous. Looks like the reference photo the draughtswoman has copied this from ended so that the lower limb of the bow was not shown. Tince it's drawn completely wrong, it's too short, too thick and doesn't bend.

2. The string stretches here, and the bow doesn't seem to be bending nearly enough for actually being a usable weapon.

3. What is this grip? Right, it isn't a grip, because he isn't gripping anything!?! Also the arrow either doesn't have fletching or it is very fluffy.

4. Back quiver. No.

Androgynous manga elf again doesn't know how to shoot

This obviously Asian drawn manga-elf has not yet perfected the art of archery. Or rather, the draugtsman of this picture hasn't seen enough reference photos.

Mistakes:

1. The bow doesn't bend enough. Now the string stretches here, which doesn't happen in reality.

2. The string terminates too far from the end of the bow. The nocks for the bowstring should be quite near the end of the limbs, otherwise the bow just loses power.

3. Quiver on back. Nah, didn't happen.

Does anorexia lead you to lumbar lordosis?

This anorexia promotion disguised as fashion photography has some major issues with archery as well. On to the mistakes:

1. The Mediterranean draw uses three fingers to draw the bowstring, not four like here. A beginners mistake.

2. The arm should point backwards from the direction of the arrow. Lifting the elbow too high wastes a lot of energy. A beginners mistake.

3. This arrow is way too long for this woman. All the arrowshaft coming in front of the bow in a full draw is wasted material. Overly long arrows were in fact used, but only in hunting, and usually fishing, by some native tribes, for example in Amazonian rainforest. Which is by the way burning at the moment. Horrible! But to this European medieval shooting style overly long arrows do not belong.

4. Arching her back like this is not a good form for archery, or anything else than looking sexy in a photograph. Archers did indeed lean forward in the middle ages, but it involves hip hinging, and the back should be straight, not arched like you had a lumbar lordosis. Even when doing archery, the back is not supposed to be arched!

5. No other arrows anywhere to be seen tells that this model has just been given a bow and one arrow and she has never held a bow in her hand before.

By the way, the faux leather can't cover the fact that this bow is entirely modern in its construction.

How can only the ponytail fly so high?

I run this blog by doing many posts at the same time. In one or two consecutive evenings I usually post ten to twenty new pictures, and put them on timing so they are automatically posted every day. Then I take a vacation from this blog for some time. I can't do this every day, and I can't stand to see these pictures too many a time.

Mistakes:

1. Sideways shooting. This time the other way around than usual. It's still stupid and pointless here.

2. Using only two fingers in a Mediterranean grip instead of three. Also seems like there wouldn't be any pulling force behind those fingers.

3. This elbow is way too high.

4. The ubiquitous back quiver as usual. It's also on the wrong shoulder.

This is the limit for now, I can't stand this anymore. It hurts my eyes too see these. Twenty is enough for now. Follow-up will be posted later. I hate this!

Bed gable bow

I hate the design clichés the Asians always do. I bet my head that this is an Asian drawing of a character. Have they never heard of the rules of how many heads the body should be tall? Since it's not twenty!

Other mistakes:

1. The bow is horrible. It looks like the gable of a "princess bed" some tasteless people want in their completely white homes. Those kind of homes make me sick.

2. There are two strings in this "bow". Two. Strings. That's one too many.

3. Also back quiver and left handed shooting (apparently).

Left handers sideways shooting club

Another concept art image from the stupid sounding game, like day before yesterday. And this is worse than the last one.

Mistakes:

1. Sideways shooting. There's not point of doing this, you are only limiting the amount of draw you can make. So it's stupid.

2. The positioning of the arms is all wrong. The red arrows I drew there should point in the same direction. They are nowhere near. This is really bad for the arm muscles and tires them quickly.

3. This could maybe be a thumb grip but it is drawn wrong. The index finger shouldn't go over the bowstring.

4. The arrowtip is very large and goes over the bow. You should never pull the arrow that far back, the tip should always stay ahead of the bow, even if ever so slightly. This is dangerous, you could cut your hand like this.

5. Back quiver. Hard to say in which shoulder it is. Also she shoots left handed, as does the other woman in the background.

Greek archer miniature

A Greek archer miniature. If anyone cares to know, the helmet type is called a pilos, and it is developed from a wool felt cap commonly in use in ancient Greece.

The bow is of correct recurve type, but it does not curve properly. Inflexibility seems to be one of the most common mistakes.

Also the arrows on the back quiver, they are situated directly vehind the head, from where they are very difficult to get.

Legolas, Duplolas, Triplolas?

This chaep-ass Legolas copy has some problem with his eyes. They are all blue. Not just the irises, but the whole eyeballs. That cannot be healthy.

Mistakes:

1. This bow doesn't bend properly. Bad bad bad bad bad.

2. No spare arrows or a quiver anywhere.

3. Shooting the only three arrows you have at once is a terrible waste. If you only have three arrows, make each shot count. Now he's going to miss at least two arrows. Or if they all hit the same target, what's the point anyway? "Öyh öyh, but it does triple damage!" says some nerd now. I don't care, people (and skeletons) don't die from damage points.

Avatar the last bow bender

This is actually technically pretty good digital drawing. The archery technique is all wrong though.

Mistakes:

1. This bow is some kind of sci-fi bow, but it has all kinds of unnecessary and stupid add-ons. Take them off and keep the black part and it would probably be usable.

2. This arrow tip is way too large compared to how thin the arrow shaft is. It would break off in an impact immediately.

3. Shooting sideways, or actually not yet shooting, but pulling the string to almost fully without aiming, that is quite bad loss of energy and a stupid thing to do.

4. This is not a real grip. The fingers do not grasp the string properly, and it is not possible to pull the string that way. Also the fletching of the arrow is too near the nock.

5. Back quiver. Also on the wrong shoulder making it impossible to use.

Fifth hood in ten days, oh my!

This is my one hundreth post in this blog! 100! Yey! Or maybe I shouldn't be happy, since it means there's been a lot of bad renditions of archery in the Internet. I will not celebrate this with anything then. But I promise there will be more bad things to come. And you haven't even seen the most horrible yet!

Now to this time's post.

I'm getting tired of these dark hooded female archer characters. Can't you design something original for a change? Oh, no? Okay.

Mistakes:
The bow. It. Does. Not. Bend. Here. Real bows bend.
Otherwise than that, and the fact that she is in a middle of a ridiculous jump, and that she doesn't have any more arrows or a quiver, it's not that bad.

The purpose of a hooded cloak is to look cool in a drawing, not to be of any use

Ohm, another one of those dark elves with holes in her hood for the ears. How would people otherwise know she is an elf? And what does it matter?

Mistakes:

1. This bow is stupid. It has two ends of the arcs. What's the point? There isn't any. Or actually there is two too many! Also looks like that the bowstring is not attached to the ends of the bow, which would be a waste of the bow's potential.

2. This bow also has stupid blades attached to them, à la Uruk-hai. No use, no point, no.

3. Magic arrows with stupidly small fletching too near the nock from a back quiver. I say no again.

This has potential, also thumb grip is cool

Now this is a character design by someone who actually cares a little about believability. So I hope he takes this criticism as a friendly advice, since there is potential of this to become better.

Mistakes:

1. The bow does not bend. It looks like it is when not being pulled. I have drawn the more probably arc when the bow is pulled in red.

2. The archer does not need to bend their head this way. Looking down the shaft of the arrow is completely unnecessary, it's something beginners do.

3. This number is for the back quiver. I would rather see a hip quiver, since they are better and were the ones mostly used in history. Back quivers are really impractical.

Good: The stance of the archer is good, and the arms are parallel. That's quite good. Also the grip of the arrow is the Mongolian thumb grip, which is perfectly okay, and drawn okay too. The tip of the arrow is too big, but I don't want to complain about it now, since it's just a minor mistake.

What is this madness?

This is the worst I've seen in a long time. Refreshing my memory, since Thursday, February 7th, this year. So not very long ago. Anyway, it makes me want to puke, and I hate puking.  

Mistakes:

1. This pukesy thing is probably supposed to be a bow of some kind but I really can't tell how. Needless to say, it wouldn't work in real life.

2. This ridiculous stringy string is made of rubber.

3. That sad joke of pulling the bow is so utterly awful I don't know if I should laugh or cry. I have nothing else to say.

Why most archers have hoods?

The reason for using a cloak is to keep a person warm. But apparently she's not concerned of that, when she's not even wearing sleeves or pants. Anyway, archery mistakes:

1. This bow doesn't bend. For a millionth time. I do not have to say this again, but bows bend. That's how they get their power. Now it looks like it has a stretchy rubber band string.

2. Pulling the bow when not shooting or aiming. Not good, it's a power loss.

3. Completely wrong grip. I don't even know where the bowstring is supposedly going there inside the hand. The draughstman has no clue about shooting it seems.

4. Holding the index finger around the arrow. Unnecessary. This is what beginners do.

5. Back quiver. And bad fletching on arrows.

6. Left handed shooting, probably not intended. Also now the back quiver is on the wrong shoulder so the arrows are impossible to get from there.

I really repeat myself in these posts, it starts to become boring. Probably for you readers also. But what can I do, the same mistakes repeat over and over again? They never end!

An elf-pirate or something else?

Is this a pirate? Why is she using a bow and wearing a scale armour which was not in a high fashion since the antiquity? Ok, some of it was used even in the Renaissance period by the Polish hussars and other Eastern Europeans, it's still a strange combo with those 17th century cavalry boots and the 18th century-esque jacket and sword. Archery mistakes are also there to stir the soup more:

1. Inflexible bow. How many times I have to correct this? Most probably forever since not many people see this blog!

2. There are a good 15 cm:s more to this arrow, so either the draw is not full, or the arrow is unnecessarily too long for her.

3. No, don't put the index finger on the arrow. A beginners mistake which results in a sore hand.

4. No quiver or other arrows.

They can't make Lara dirtier than this!

Two picture of the new Lara Croft, with more dirt on her body, but smaller boobs than before.
In neither of these pictures you can see the bow, which is probably the stupid bunch of rods as in the new game. Let's not talk about that now, since it doesn't show here.

In the first picture Lara is pulling the bow even though she is not aiming (=shooting) at anything. People think it looks cooler than to just have the bow in hand, so they ofter draw archers do this, and even promo pictures for movies are taken like this even though it's completely stupid and unnecessary. Pulling the bow requires quite a lot of strength, and doing it for the coolness without actually an intent to shoot is not good. It's a waste of your energy. Nobody does that in real life. Lara here is also using just two fingers for the Mediterranean grip, although she should use three. The fletching of the arrow is too small.

In the second picture Lara has a different arrow, with proper long fletching and a shaft that is as thick as a finger. That is a heavy war arrow, I don't know where she got that one. The bowstring however goes to a completely wrong directions. It could be possible if she would be using a very short recorve bow, such as what Mongolians sometimes used, but I know she's having the bunch-of-rods-bow which is the size of a longbow. Thus the string is drawn utterly wrong. I gave more realistic position for it in red.

Another Roman archer, much better this time.

Another Roman archer. This time mroe historically accurate, although the helmet has very strange decorations and the greaves should be left off. I drew in red where the bow should actually bend, I think this miniature model is made of something that is not suitable for thin details such as bows and arrows, since both of them are horribly deformed. I took the correct shape of the bow from a photograph of myself shooting with a recurve bow from last Sunday, actually in a Roman garb (but a couple centuries later than what this guy is wearing). Also looks like he's using only two fingers for the pull, when he should be using three. And a quiver is missing. Okay I though that I wouldn't have to count the mistakes, but here they are again.

1. Deformed bow and arrow.

2. Two finger grip.

3. No quiver.

Do elf ears freeze in winter?

Why would anyone care about the shape of their ears so much that they would cut holes in their perfectly good and warm hood so that their ears will freeze in the winter? Is there really nothing else that the draughtsman can use to distinguish a character as an elf? And why has every archer character has to be an elf? And a woman? And an elf-woman? WHY? Somebody answer me.

Mistakes:

1. This bow is completely stupid. Looks like it's made of metal and it wouldn't bend at all. It's also covered in blades which is a very bad idea.

2. The bowstring is attached to nowhere near the ends of the bow. This is as stupid as putting the handle of the sword in the middle of the blade, or attaching a speartip in the middle of the shaft. Such a waste.

3. Is this a freaking fire arrow? Looks like napalm or something burning. Nope.

4. The age-old trop of the back quiver not supported by much historical evidence in Europe.

Do the ravens make her a bad character?

There isn't much mistakes because she isn't pulling the bow yet. The most mistakes happen when that is depicted:

1. This bow is hugely and ridiculously too thick. Nobody would be able to shoot with it.

2. The handle part of the bow is three times the length it should be. Only the length of a fist is enough.

3. Arrows at the back quiver. Can't even see if it's on the right or left shoulder. They would be impossible to get from there if it's on the left shoulder.

Good: Setting the arrow on the bowstring seems realistic enough.

Hello Mr. Elrondson

The face is Elrond (Hugo Weaving) from the Lord of the Rings movies. Everything else is imagination.

Mistakes:

1. Overarm bowstring, noooooooooooo! Don't do this ever again, pleeeeeease!

2. Reverse grip, no, nobody should do this either. Is he also gripping the bowstring with four fingers? As if he's never shot before.

3. Inflexible bow, this is a very bad mistake. Bows bend people, bows bend. Also, why is he pulling the string if he's not aiming at a target? Nobody does this, since it wastes energy unnecessary.

4. Back quiver. I'd rather not see this one again.

Clipart "Roman" archer

This ugly and completely inaccurate clipart is supposedly depicting a Roman archer. Well, real Roman archers looked absolutely nothing like this. There is not a single piece of equipment or clothing even remotely reminiscent of anything a real person has ever worn in the history of mankind. The makers of these clipart images have totally no clue about history. None, zero, nihil. They also got everything about archery wrong, so to the mistakes:

1. This obviously modern looking bow does not bend. So it wouldn't work, it's not a real bow. It's just a piece of something that has a flexible string. Bowstrings don't flex, the bow itself bends. Learn this, please!

2. The arrow just floats in the air, since it does not rest on the fist of the archer. This is impossible. The arrowtip is also ridiculously large, but this is a stupid clipart image where they have to exaggerate everything.

3. The elbow here should be pointing backwards and the arms should be parallel to each other and to the arrow. This does not happen.

4. The grip is all wrong (not because of him having only four fingers, but because it is drawn wrong), and the fletching of the arrow is too far back, it shouldn't be inside the fist of course.

5. (Which I forgot to mark in the picture) there are no otehr arrows or a quiver anywhere.

Iorveth from Witcher 2

This is either concept art of fan art from the second Witcher game's elf brigand leader Iorveth. Mistakes:

1. The bow is just ridiculous. It wouldn't work. Why does it need two arcs? It wouldn't. The second arc is completely unnecessary. Also the bow arcs are way too thick and the handle part is too long.

2. Mediterranean grip with only two fingers. Three would be better, there is no reason why you shouldn't use the third finger, it gives more strength to the pull.

3. This arrow is missing its fletching.

Good: a hip quiver, yay! Witcher games have generally good clothing and gear design, pretty realistic and believable as fantasy. Although this bow is very stupid.

Chaotic forest woman

Straight to the mistakes, I'm not in a mood far talking:

1. Sideways shooting. It's just wrong. It reduces the availabe space for draw, thus decreasing the flight of the arrow. Also the string arms' elbow is pointing to a wrong direction, it should be parallel to the other arm, pointing backwards.

2. What is this grip? The arrow seems to be between middle and ring fingers. This is not a grip anyone should use.

3. The arrowtip is too large and heavy and has unnecessary spikes. Spikes do not do more damage. It would be very expensive to forge this kind of arrowtips, and then they get lost anyway. Such a waste.

4. Arrows on the back. Pointing to a mishmash of directions. Also very strange shape of fletching.

Is it a woman or a man, hard to tell from elves sometimes!

Does it say 2003? From time they still did concept art for games by hand? Nice. Although this isn't so nice than it could be. Mistakes are:

1. Stupid looking bow with unnecessary appendages which make it less effective.

2. Too big and heavy looking arrowtip. It's like a javelin tip.

3. Wrong grip with the string hand, palm up please!

4. Back quiver. Once again.

I don't recognise this as a bow

This "artwork" is a straight up copy of a game character from Aion, one of those stupid Asian MMORPG:s which I don't want to easte my life into. Many people do apparently, otherwise there wouldn't be a market for so many of those, and they all are copies of each other. They also do very bad when concerning realism. Especially archery. Mistakes in this one are as follows:

1. If there wouldn't be an arrow I wouldn't even recognise that this is a bow. It is so ridiculously ugly piece of crap that I don't want to look at it.

2. There is no bowstring.

3. The arrows is too far up from the bowhand and seems to be missing fletching. But it feels like nitpicking compared to the bow which is stupid beyond belief.

4. You cannot shoot with a gauntlet with huge claws like that. It would also probably damage the string.

5. No other arrows, no quiver anywhere.

This game is so ugly that I wouldn't play it even if they would pay me the 12 to 16 dollars the MMO:s usually cost a month to play. This is the worst picture I've seen this year. Hopefully the year has only just started a month ago so there will be a lot more of these horribilities coming. Stay tuned!

Dryad from Witcher 3

This is the dryad Morenn from the Witcher game series, and the picture is from the third game.
It is technically a good digital drawing, but the archery is technically not good. It has mistakes:

 

1. The arrow would fall off of here easily because the bow is in sideways position.

2. She's wasting a huge lot of energy by pulling the bow when she's not actually shooting. Don't do this. The grip is almost a thumb grip, but a little erroneously drawn.

3. The bow is wasting it's potential when the string is not attached to the nocks in the very end of the bowarms.

4. There are no arrows anywhere else to be seen, and no quiver.

Also the bowstring looks very thick, but I have not given it a mistake point. But maybe should have.

 

I have continued my criticism with other dryads of the Witcher world in a later post, that you can find here.

What's the point of fire arrows in Mordor?

This may be a Mordor orc or a goblin or something. I don't really care. But what I do care about are the mistakes!

1. This bow is stolen from Lara Croft. The young version, with more clothes and less boobs than usual. Also less of a bow, since it's made out of a bunch of sticks. It would be quite easy to make a bow from one piece of wood, but maybe orcs want to make everything crappy on purpose. Then again in many fantasy lores they are good craftsmen and smiths, but it doesn't really show since their products are terrible and typically unusable crap. Like this bunch of sticks here.

2. Are all these arrows used thousand times since the fletching of orc arrows is always so bad? Too little space between the fletching and the nock maybe be half the reason for that. And what is the purpose of keeping the arrow between teeth? It would seriously be in the way of the bowstring while shooting, and getting the arrow from there is not in any way faster than from some other places. I would even guess it would be slower to get it from there. Faster would be to keep several arrows in your hand already, either the bow hand or the string hand (the latter is even faster of the two).

3. He has a back quiver and a hip quiver, but why? If you are used to a hip quiver, why to have also a back quiver, isn't it just confusing? Why not two hip quivers, people (and orcs) have two hips after all?

4. The grip is wrong, two fingers used instead of three and the hand is palm down when it should be the other way around in this position. Also nobody would want to spend their energy unnecessarily by pulling the string half way back at this point when the bow isn't pointing anywhere near the direction of shooting.

5. Fire arrows. Stupid fire arrows again. What are he going to set on fire? The rocks? The volcano? It is already on fire! And there's nothing else that can be burning in a range of miles around him. The land of Mordor is completely barren. Fire arrows were not shot against people, since it's completely unnecessary, people die perfectly well from hits of regular arrows, and actual fire arrows would do less damage to people than normal arrows, because of the structure of their arrowtips.

Should I be worried about men who draw these sexualised little girls?

This bow is just ridiculous. I don't want to talk about anything else here. This bow is waaaay too thick to be usable by anyone, let alone by a girl who's arms are three times thinner than the bow itself. If there would be a machine strong enough to pull this bow two string would just snap in before the bow could really bend. If the string would be magical and not break the handle of the bow which is five times thinner than the arc, would break and the whole bow would snap in two parts. The handle is usually the thickest part of the bow, not the thinnest. This bow is so wrong there is just now would it could be usable in any magical fantasy world ever created.

She has a hip quiver too. And hips of an adult woman connected to the torso of a prepubescent girl who's boobies are almost slipping out of the underboob-cut vest. What's wrong with Asians?

Bladed bows don't really work

I always feel a little bad when destroying these drawings which are obviously made by teenagers. I wasn't a perfect draughtsman when I was a teen, artists journey continues his whole lifetime. But I like to think that these pictures have circulated in the Internet for years, maybe even decades already, so the initial teens who have made them are not teens anymore but adults who can take criticism without sniffing a pea into their noses (is that a proverb in English, I don't know, at least in Finland we use it... a lot, tells something about people around me, doesn't it). On to the mistakes:

1. Ridiculous bow which is too thick and heavy, has unnecessary spikes and apparently quite long metallic blades on both of its arms, which are so big and attached to their whole length that they wouldn't let the bow bend. It would be impossible to shoot anything with this thing. You just cannot attach blades to a bow like this.

2. The arrows don't have any space between the fletching and the nock, which is a bad thing.

3. Arrows from a back quiver, which is really impractical and almost never done in history, at least in Europe.

4. Left handed archer. I still count this as a mistake, since I don't believe for a moment that it is intentional, the draughtsboy just didn't have a clue where he should put the bow.

Please remember from now on: bows bend!

This was recently posted on Facebook and I thought it was actually quite funny. Sadly the draughtsman didn't use reference for the bow, since it does not bend here. I have drawn in red where the bow should bend.

This is one of the most common mistakes when drawing a bow, inflexible bow arc and stretchy string. No, bows do not have rubber bands on them, the string don't stretch and bows are made of wood (mainly) in order for them to bend and provide the necessary power to propel the arrow forward. Making an inflexible bow with stretchy string would be much less powerful, it's like a slingshot compared to a bow, the first one is a toy, the second one is a weapon.

So all people who will ever draw a bow, please remember this, bows bend and the string doesn't stretch. I would be happy if you would remember this.

Mini arrows cannot be shot like this

This little drawing would have benefited for little more thinking before putting the marker on paper.

Mistakes:

1. This arrow is waaaaaay too short, like one third of the length it should be. It would be impossible to shoot like this. In real life short arrows are possible to shoot if the archers has a special piece of equipment which goes by many names, Koreans call it Tongah or Tong-ah, Turks call it Majra or Nawak and Romans in the medieval times called it Solenarion. It is a half tube, made of wood, of bamboo in the far east, and it allows the arrow to be overdrawn, so that the arrowtip is drawn behind the arc of the bow. Without this device shooting of very short arrows wouldn't be possible. This dude in the picture should get one, or make it by himself, they're pretty easy to make.

2. Sideways shooting. There is absolutely no point of shooting sideways here.

3. The bowstring seems to be over the bow arm here, which is so great a mistake that not even a person who holds the bow for the first time would ever in any circumstances do it. It only happens in drawings where the draughtsman has absolutely no clue of how archery works. This picture's drawer has claerly never shot an arrow in his life.

4. The position of the string hand is awkward and tells of bad grip.

5. Arrows on the back, and even of the wrong shoulder where they would be almost impossible to take out.

This was bad, this was definitely bad.

Larp ranger showing of her modern shoes

I almost feel bad about criticizing this one. It is a promotional photo from my absolute favourite soleplaying convention in Finland. This might be a person I have actually met, but probably not. Remember folks that this is nothing personal, just business.

Mistakes:

1. The positioning of the wrist like this is the exact reason you need that leather bracer to protect your arm when the bowstring hits it every single time you shoot. Keeping the arm and wrist more straigh of bending slightly outwards, not inwards like here, keeps the arm out of harms way and the bracer is not even needed.

2. There is way too much of this arrow on this side of the bow, meaning that the draw is not full. Why wouldn't you shoot with full force, wasting the power of the arrow like this makes it fly less than it could.

3. Arrows on the back in a quiver that looks more like a sleeping blanket rolled and tied onto a backpack or something.

This is by no means the worst I've seen, but better luck next time still!