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.