School girl Link with aviator hood

This time a 3D-rendering that looks like the Japanese game developers have tried to compose something vaguely European and Medievalish like. Those boots are just super weird, and so is the aviator hood! and the plaited skirt has much more common with modern Japanese school girl uniforms than with anything Medieval. The archery is also weird.

Mistakes:

1. The bow has these huge wooden blocks inside its arc, that will render it pretty unusable, since they would hamper the bending of the bow limbs severely.

2. There is a large bulbuous thingy in the upper nock of the bow. What's its purpose? Certainly it doesn't have one, apart from making the unusable bow even more of a nuisance.

3. The fistmele, the distance between the grip and string of the bow as indicated by the red line here is too large. In a longbow it should be approximately the height of the archer's fist with an upturned thumb.

4. The ubiquitous back quiver strikes again! It's a clear mistake in European Medieval context (and in fantasy derived from it), which this obviously tries to be.

Double-arced crossbow for no reason at all

A trading card game piece apparently. And with a crossbow, since I've started to collect crossbow pistures too. This work never ends!

But why does this crossbow has two arcs on it? It doesn't make any sense. Some modern compound crossbows (and indeed compound bows in general) have double arcs, but that is because they have the cams (working like pulleys) between the limbs of the bow. Without the cams there is no point of splitting the arc in two, it's counterintuitive and stupid. It was also never done before compound bows.

This crossbow is not a double-shooter, it has only one string, so both the arcs are attached to the same string. The string is also way too thin for a crossbow. Crossbow strings need to be thick like a bolt (a crossbow arrow).

Here are the parts of a modern compound crossbow for a reference:

That bow should've been tillered

Straight to the mistakes:

1. This bow bends asymmetrically. There are asymmetric bows in real life, like the Japanese Yumi, but this is not like those. This is just a bad bow. The upper limb bends too much compared to the lower limb. This is a problem that is eliminated in tillering, a process of making the bow limbs bend the same amount, when makign the bow. This bow is already ruined, it cannot be fixed.

2. This arrowshaft is too thin, especially when compared to the large arrowtip is has.

3. Long fletching is perfectly okay an an arrow, but these extend too far back, between the fingers of the arrow hand.

4. Two finger Mediterranean grip with the spring held only with the very tip of the fingers. The fingers should curl up some more on the string, especially if there's just two. Not in a clenched fist of course, that's not what I said.

5. Back quiver

If you'd spent that time it took to grow that hair to practise archery, you'd be good already

This stance is entirely wrong. I see this a lot in beginners. The back should be more straight and the shoulder blades pulled together so that the chest muscles are opened more. Shoulders need to align with the arrow a lot more than this, the head should be kept straight on top of the spine, no need to cant it like this for aiming. You don't need to look down the arrowshaft, the aiming should be instictive. Of course it needs training, but who said archery is going to be easy? When you just learn not to lock your bowarm's elbow you won't even need the overly large arm guard anymore.

Horror vacui

There's so much going on it's hard to see what there really is. Horror vacui much?

Mistakes:

1. Utterly ridiculous trash bow.

2. The bow doesn't bend, instead the bowstring stretches.

3. Index finger on top of arrow.

4. This grip doesn't look anywhere near convincing. It's like he's not using any strength at all, probably because the bow doesn't bend and has just a rubber band for a string.

5. No quiver, no spare arrows anywhere. Until they're inside his massive spiked collar-thingy. Who knows really.

Crossbow assassin

Let's review a crossbow for a change! Getting tired of handbows being drawn awfully, so this is gonna be a refreshing break. Mistakes:

1. This is a pistol crossbow, meaning that it's very small, easily used in one hand. These existed, but they were toys for the rich people in Early Modern period Europe. It was not an assassin's weapon by any chance.

2. The purpose of the stirrup in a normal sized crossbow is that the crossbowman puts his foot into it and that helds the crossbow in place while it is being loaded. This stirrup is too small for anyone's foot to fit in, and completely unnecessary since pistol crossbows were loaded without the stirrup.

3. The bowstring is not drawn, but there is still a bolt (crossbow arrows are called bolts) on the crossbow. This is wrong.

4. No quiver for spare arrows. Crossbow quivers were always carried on the hip by the way, surprise surprise.

What is that ring on top of his head?

I don't like this style of drawing. Too messy. But hey, that's just me!

Mistakes:

1. Bow is unbendable, too thick, and doesn't thin towards the ends at all. Complete trash.

2. The arrotip is way too large, arrowshaft too short.

3. Looks like he's nocking the arrow way too high on the bowstring.

4. No quiver, no other arrows. A pretty common mistake in drawings and photoshoots.

Stock photo archeress

I have nothing to say to this picture, other than mistakes of course:

1. This elbow should be pointing back and not to the side.

2. Sideways shooting. Now somebody is going to comment that canting the bow like this is possible. Yes it is, but why? There is no obstacles that would make it necessary in this image.

3. Beginner's mistake: keeping the index finger above the arrow.

4. No quivers were harmed during this photoshoot.

Note:
She has a strange grip of the arrow. It's not the traditional European "Mediterranean" grip, nor the widespread Asian "Mongolian" thumb grip. But it is a real grip, a pinching grip, although relatively rare one. It is used by some natives, and presumably ancient people's of Europe. It's really hard and requires a lot of finger muscles for the pinching, which this girl obviously doesn't have. But in this case it doesn't bother her since this bow (if it is even a bow and not a stick with a string) has about 10 pounds of draw weight.

Barely naked Amazon

Amazon warrior of course, immediately noticable by the lack of clothes. Since of course there would be a culture that is composed entirely of women but don't know how to make clothes! Those steel armour plates would be pretty painful on bare skin, but maybe the Amazons like pain?

Archery mistakes:

1. This bow is flat on the wrong dimension. It is flat on the sides when it should be flat on the back. Wouldn't work well like this, if at all.

2. Sideways shooting. Don't tell me she's just nocking the arrow, we all know that she's going to shoot sideways too since it looks "cooler".

3. Beginners often stick out their index finger like this. Some say it is useful to feel where the arrowtip is, but I find this explanation unsounded. Why would you need to feel the arrowtip, you already see and know where it is?

4. She has been given an archery glove with two fingers, only it's on the wrong hand.

5. Reverse grip.

6. Back quiver, on the wrong shoulder.

7. The struckture of this bow's siyahs makes it impossible for removing the bowstring. It should be removable since all bows are stored without their strings in place.

How many of these drawn girls shoot while jumping, and why?

Awful manga-inspired drawing full of bad archery. Mistakes:

1. Ridiculous bow. Completely unshootable. Made of a pile of junk. Would weight a ton.

2. No bowstring, what?

3. Overly large arrowtip. Wouldn't really fly far.

4. No other arrows in a quiver or anywhere.

I don't know if this could be more wrong

Yäääh, this is really bad! Where should I even start...
Mistakes:

1. This bow doesn't bend.

2. There are two (2!) bowstrings.

3. Bowstring(s) go on top of the bowarm here! A result of wrongly done sideway shooting.

4. Too large arrowtip. If it's on fire, don't draw it so near the wooden bow. Arrow is also too short and missing fletchings.

5. Reverse grip.

6. Back quiver, on the wrong shoulder.

Elf with a WWII ammo bag on belt

An elf again, a man-elf once in a while. Still pretty boring. Left-handedness not sanctioned anymore.

Mistakes:

1. Finger over arrow.

2. Two arrows shot at once.

3. This grip is not good, it's too loose. Doesn't look like he's really drawing the bow.

4. Back quiver. Almost always a mistake in my books. Will write an article about that someday in the future. It's even on the wrong shoulder it seems.

The new Tomb Raider cosplay

Nice Lara Croft cosplay, but the archery should use some work.

Mistakes:

1. This elbow (of her right arm) should point higher up and backwards from the arrowshaft, not to the ground like this.

2. This elbow should not be bent in like this, it will lead to the bowstring hitting the forearm. The bow arm doesn't need to be exactly straight, just a little bit bent.

3. Take the forefinger off from the top of the arrow. It will hurt in release.

4. Three fingers are enough for the Mediterranean draw, four in unnecessary and might hamper the shot.

5.This bow is crooked (the upper limb in this photo should turn right and not left), and I believe it's not a real bow, but just a cosplay prop.

Neutral:
The quiver is okay. It's ugly, but Lara is supposed to make it herself in the bushes or something. And it's more of a hip quiver than a back quiver, so that's something I like.

Generic turban guy

This looks like a drawing of my friend who likes to draw clichéd black-clothed raghead characters (his wording, not mine!) that look like himself. But this is somebody elses drawing entirely. To the point: mistakes!

1. Is this arrow solid steel? That's a bad idea, an arrow has to bend around the bow arc in order to fly well.

2. This longbow doesn't seem to bend enough. Also why is a Middle-Eastern / Indian inspired archer using a Western European type longbow? Usually we always see recurve bows nowadays, because people think they look cooler, but this would be the time to use it!

3. Four finger grip, instead of three, or any other proper grip.

4. These flethings are terrible, they also cover the nock of the arrow which is really bad.

5. Back quiver, and on the wrong shoulder.

Chinese elf

This Chinese drawing has a serious mistake:

1. The bow doesn't bend. It's a common misconception in drawing, but every archer knows that bow bends, and the string doesn't stretch. I've drawn a comparison of a real bow here for you all to see how this bow should bend.

2. This bow also has blades. Unnecessary and stupid.

3. Back quiver, and even on the wrong shoulder. A mistake it is.

Vaguely Medievalish archer

This looks like a video game concept drawing for a vaguely Medieval-ish game.
Mistakes:

1. This bow is flat in the wrong dimension. Flat bows existed, and most bows were flat towards the back of the bow, not like this which is flat towards the sides. This makes bending the bow extremely hard.

2. The arrow tip is way too large.

3. Fletching is missing.

4. Reverse grip, wrong.

5. Back quiver, also wrong.

Some kind of ranger

A ranger of some sort. With a ridiculous leather patch armour à la Hollywood. Let's get to business.

Mistakes:

1. The bow seems to be constructed of different parts. This is sometimes done nowadays, but was not done historically in Europe, which' cultures this ranger is obviously based on. European bows were made of one piece of wood, or laminated with several pieces, and of different materials, like horn and sinew (in the case of recurve bows like this one here), but never like this with two wooden limbs nailed to a steel handle.

2. This arrow only has two feltchings. While there were two-fletched arrows, never in Europe, they were rare also elsewhere, and where made a bit differently.

3. Back quiver, and even on the wrong shoulder. Impossible to get the arrows from there easily.

Perfectly good hip quiver ruined with a ridiculous bow

This bow is completely ridiculous, it wouldn't work at all. It's way too thick and constructed of possibly metal. While metallic bows did indeed exist (e.g. in India, but they were always rare), they were really flat, not like this. This wouldn't bend at all and would weight dozens of kilos! There's also unnecessary spikes on the bow that are only a liability to the archer himself.

The only good thing here is the hip quiver.

Chief bull-sitter

I don't know what this is, a Native American tree person? Undead Native American tree person perhaps?

Mistakes:

1. This wouldn't work, it's not a bow, it's just a tree branch with a string. A bow has to be made of solid wood, not from a twisted branch like this. Indians were really good bow makers, so this is a shame really.

2. This arrow is laughably short, it cannot be shot from this bow at all. It also lacks fletchings.

3. There is no quiver or other arrows anywhere.

I've never seen a bow like this been drawn

This just wouldn't work. The bowstring cannot go past the bow arc like this. The bow limbs have to bend back further so that the string is unhampered. Not like this, this would ruin the string very quickly, if it would work at all.

Also, a back quiver is a mistake.

On the other hand, I've stopped sanctioning left-handedness. Not because about five percent of all people are left-handed, no since the left-handed archer drawings outnumber the amount of real left-handers in any population by vast numbers. But instead because an excellent archer should know how to shoot with both right and left-handed. Does that sound fair to you?

And is this Avatar the Last Air Bender water people inspired by any chance?

Demoness archer

Let's get back to ordinary reviews of drawings and photographs, after a series of tiresome to write movie related posts. The next twenty will be these, since there's nearly 400 pictures in my files still waiting to be mocked, and new ones emerge every time I make a Google search. I want to get rid of these someday, so work work work...

Mistakes:

1. This bow is ridiculous, it wouldn't work since it's full of things that won't bend properly. Utterly unusable thing.

2. The arrow, while being a magic arrow, floats in the air above the bow hand. It should still rest on the fist.

3. There are no fletchings in this arrow.

4. And there are no other arrows in a quiver or anywhere else to be seen. Very poor archer only has one arrow.

Uruk-hai archery from Lord of the Rings

A reader of mine (should I call them fans, I don't know?) asked me to make a blog post of Lurtz from the film Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Naturally I got interested, since this was one of my favourite movies when I was growing up. Can't believe it's almost been two decades from it! Lurtz is the leader of the Uruk-hai, the "super orcs" created by Saruman in Isengard. He is not in the books of Tolkien, so he's invented for the movie. In Lord of the Rings book Boromir is killed by orc archers, "pierced by many arrows".

The scene is very powerful, the last stand of Boromir against countless Uruk-hai horde. Lurtz, their leader was more fearsome than Azog from the later CGI-ruined Hobbit-trilogy for sure. I want to make several points about his archery though:

1. Reverse grip. There is very little evidence that this style was ever used historically anywhere in the World. There are no added benefits of reversing the Mediterranean grip like this.

2. The reverse grip has lead Lurtz to cant his bow, but this is in limits of reason, so it's not a mistake. What is though, is that the back of the bow has a clear edge on it. Bow backs should be (near) flat since that makes them structurally stronger. A wooden selfbow is made from a split tree trunk so that the back of the bow is made from the outer layer of wood, and belly from the inside. The bow is planed so that the back is formed of a single grain, and not sawn cross-grain, since that would make it weaker. Making a bow with a triangular shape like this would make the single grain back of the bow very thin.

 Longbow cross sections. The back of the bow (pointing outwards of the archer) is on top of these pictures. As you can see, the back is always pretty flat.

Composite recurve bows are also pretty flat on their backs since it's easier to glue flat pieces together and there would be no added benefit of this kind of edge on the bow. Some composite bows however turn towards this trriangular back shape near the end of their limbs, in the siyahs. That makes those parts less bendy, which is a desired effect there, but not in the lower limbs on the bow. Lurtz's bow is triangular everywhere on its back. I guess orcish things have to be black and edgy, like their souls (if they have those).

Cross sections of a limb of a composite recurve bow. The limb is more or less flat (to make it more bendy) until the siyah (left in the picture) which is triangular to make it bend less. It wouldn't be a really good idea to make the whole bow triangular on its back.

3. Our poor fallen hero Boromir is redeeming himself here, making the ultimate sacrifice to save the lives of the hobbits Merry and Pippin from the orcs. He continued fighting after Lurtz shot two arrows straight to his upper body. The third one dropped him to his knees. Is this believable?

The first arrow struck to the upper left pectoralis major muscle (big chest muscle), behind which at this spot is the left lung. A human will die of arrow punctured lung if not given medical treatment, but the death doesn't come immediately, it can take minutes up to half an hour maybe. The second arrow struck Boromir to his lower left abdomen, where there are intestines. Punctured guts will also lead to death without treatment, but not in an instant. Boromir continues fighting exhausted even after these two shots.

Panting breath results from the punctured lung, and he only uses the right hand for swordfighting, except for one powerful blow where he uses both hands. The first arrow to the left chest muscle have probably made moving the left arm difficult and painful. The third arrow drops Boromir on his knees again for the last time. This shot hits straight in the middle of his torso, where the stomach and liver are. This is also a deadly shot, but it will take awhile for him to die. All and all I think the death of Boromir is depicted fairly realistically, the weariness and woundings are really taking a toll on him and finally he collapses. Beautifully filmed and painfully sad at the same time.

Something I want to say about the armour though. Boromir is wearing a mail shirt (a 'chain' before a 'mail' is completely redundant) under his sleeveless leather coat and short-sleeved fabric tunic. Those garments over the top of the mail shirt are not armour, just clothes, since they wouldn't provide much protection from weapons. But the mail shirt (of which we can only see sleeves from under the tunic) is real armour, and capable of protecting its wearer from arrows pretty effectively. A widely spread misconception regarding mail is that it's good against slashing attacks, but weak against puncturing hits, such as thrusts and arrow hits. This is not entirely true. While mail protected obviously better against cutting attacks (like all armours were), an expensive good quality mail (which all historical mail was, unlike most modern mail used in reenactment) did stand a chance against arrows too. Only specifically designed "mail piercer" arrowtips of long bodkin type (needle bodkins) shot from powerful bows could penetrate it.

Arrows Lurtz are using do not seem to be (long) bodkins, as shown on the right.

Lurtz's arrowtips are not shown in focus to the camera at all, but they seem to be like "standard" arrowheads of leaf shape, generally quite small, which is good. But they do not seem to be bodkins, at least long ones. Would those penetrate mail armour? Probably not. And Lurtz's arrows struck something like halfway through Boromir, his armour and clothes and all. Lurtz is supposed to be an exceptionally strong warrior, even for an Uruk-hai, so maybe his bow is super strong?

But then again we see in close-up shots that Boromir's chest skin is showing between the lapels of his tunic, and that indicates that there is no mail underneath the torso (another possibility is that his mail shirt also has a wide neck hole). And in fact in the costume of actor Sean Bean there are only mail sleeves attached in his undertunic (done for saving production time of course).

Boromir's costume only included mail sleeves sewn onto an undershirt, instead of a full mail armour. On the right an example of European 16th century arming doublet with sewn on mail sleeves. This would have been worn under full plate armour, and the breast and backplates would have covered the parts were there are no mail in this arming doublet.

While this was done historically in the 15th century and later when plate armour was used by knights and men-at-arms, the pieces of mail that were sewn to an arming doublet were used at those points were there were no plates, such as armpits and inside of elbows. Those who didn't have plate armour, had mail shirts covering their torso and arms. Since Boromir doesn't have any plate armour with him on the travel with the Fellowship, it is reasonable to suggest that he should have an entire mail shirt under his outer garments, and not just sewn on sleeves. Since nobody would use mail (or any armour) to protect the arms before the torso.

Lurtz is shown here executing the last deadly shot, which he ultimately fails due to Aragorn's interruption. This is the first time we see his bow fully. And it is indeed an interesting piece of weaponry. The general shape of the bow is strange, like an inverted recurve bow, without the siyahs though. But this shape of bows are known from a few places and times in World history, ancient Egypt and the Near East coming to mind first. It's a perfectly functional design for a bow, yet a peculiar one. Suits the orcs well I think, since it's so different than the bows of the elves or men of Middle Earth. However, some things I consider mistakes here.

On left, a recurve bow of Turkish early modern period form, on right an angular bow of ancient Egyptian form of the Bronze Age. The orcish bow resembles a mix of these two.

4. This Uruk-hai bow has two blades attached to over and under its handle. This is stupid, since nobody would use a bow as a hitting weapon. Not even the orcs. There are some pretty stupid things said about the Uruk-hai and orcs in general in the supplementary material to the trilogy of films by Peter Jackson. I remember reading as a child from the book "Lord of the Rings: Weapons and Warfare" that the boots Uruk-hai are using were nailed to their feet! why on Middle Earth would anybody do that? It would make their walking painful, probably causing severe effects due to bleeding etc. Even though the Uruk-hai apparently don't feel pain it would still be very counterintuitive and idiotic thing to do. Why not just walk without boots then, since the purpose of boots is to protect the feet?

The same kind of thinking applies to other design about the orcs, everything have to be crudely made, look very worn out (even though it's shining new), everything is very angular and spikey, and looks painful to wear. This is true for the bow too, which have the weird angle at its back which I talked about earlier. It also has these blades that are never even used in the movie. Since they're useless. It's like a knuckle duster in a sword fight, that means an obvious loss. Lurtz picks up a sword after Aragorn falls him down since even the moviemakers realised it would look stupid if he fought with using the bladed bow as a knuckle duster, and it would be too easy for Aragorn to win against that.

5. This bow makes a very creeky sound when drawn. This would be a design mistake applied to orcish bows specifically if it wouldn't be a mistake applied to all bows in historical films! Bows do not make a creeking sound when drawn. If they do, they are probably somehow broken and in danger of snapping or splitting at some point in near future. And don't tell me this is an old bow, since it's brand new, like everything the Uruks have, as well as themselves.

What else is good about this picture is that Lurtz has a hip quiver! Not the ubiquitous back quiver that Legolas has. And everybody else in movies. But nobody in real World Middle Ages, the obvious inspiration behind Middle Earth.

Avatar cosplay

This time reviewing archery of some Avatar cosplays I came across from the Internet. No more Avatar related stuff for awhile after this, I promise.
This first one should really use a real bow. This is a stick with a string. It obviously doesn't bend since she cannot present a full draw. But what would be the point anyway, if she doesn't have an arrow? The leather bracer is on the wrong arm too. Did Na'vi use sandals by any chance?

How did they get leopard print in Pandora? I don't think leopards live there. And what's with those flip flops? The bow is again just a stick with a string, not a reall working weapon. Arrows are missing again. And that's an uncomfortable place to wear your knife!

 I always appreciate good body paint over printed leotards. What I would also appreciate is using a straight arrow. This is a branch taken out of a bush when lining into Comic-Con. Please buy a wooden dowel from a hardware store next time, doesn't cost much. Sideways shooting is also bad.

This seems like a real photographer took it, maybe not the best one, but someone who really hobbies it with a real camera and all. Sadly the bow is horrible, and even more horrible is the way she's holding it. she should've grabbed the bow one fist width higher. This is really bad for the wrist too. The drawing technique is different from the Na'vi of the film.

What's with this leopard print again!?!
This bow is a cosplay bow, cannot shoot arrows very far. The usual mistakes of cosplay bows apply here: handle and mid part are too long and unbendy. She's holding the arrow between the fingers of her bow hand, which is very bad. That will hurt a lot when the arrow is released. Or would if the bow would have any power. Which it clearly doesn't since she only use the tiniest amount of strength of her fingertips to draw the bow in this photo. The drawing technique is different from the movie and she's shooting right handed unlike the Na'vi.

I saved the worst technique last. From the same photoshoot than the previous picture comes this monstrosity. The bowstring goes OVER the bowarm here. That is wrong on so many levels I can't bring myself even to begin the sermon all over again. I've talkerd about it many times before, this is one of the worst mistake you can do. Usually I see it depicted on drawings, rarely if ever by real people, since it will hurt a lot when you release that string and it hits your forarm. But then again this cosplay bow is not meant for shooting anyway and doesn't hold any real power. Sideways shooting is wrong anyway. Suddenly she's left handed for this photo, mirrored image perhaps?

Avatar merchandise and fan-art

By Googling images of Avatar again for the re-review I came across a bunch of toys, fan-art and cosplay related to it. Most of it depicted archery and bows very poorly. I thought it could provide some fun reading, so here they are: Avatar merchandise and other descendants!

The first two pics above are of toys (or action figures = toys for adults, but not "adult toys"). You can rearrange their limb positions, and you should do so, since they are both horribly wrong. The first one on the left holds the bow sideways, even though it is in drawn shooting position. The hand has been put to grab the string over the arrow. Nope.

The second one on the right has two bows at the same time! Or then the bow has four limbs in an X-pattern! In either case, really NOPE! The string arms elbow should also be higher.

This manga-ish fanart drawing is right handed, even though all Na'vi are left-handed in the film. But that's not the biggest concern here. This Na'vi also uses a kind of Mediterranean grip (unlike all Na'vi in the film), but the string goes only under the index finger. No, it should be held with three fingers (maybe two in Na'vis case, since they only have four). The arrow doesn't seem to be nocked on the bowstring at all, and the fletchings are way too back since they touch the string hand. The arrowtip is too large and it's attachment looks non-secure. It looks also blunt. By the look of the shadow of the arrow, that arrow is floating on the air and not resting on the bowhand of the archer.

This sculpture by Emma Joyne is apparently made from rice crispies, which puts to shame all the contestants on Nailed It! Incredible job really. But the bow is really strange. Na'vi in Avatar have very long bows, and they certainly do not curve this much. And neither do real bows. When making a bow short it is often good to make it recurved so that the siyahs (end of the bowlimbs) turn outwards from the bow. That's how it can be overdrawn like this without the bowstring slipping off the nocks. Of course that's only a side product of a recurve bow (primary reason is to make a bow stronger), but it works like this nonetheless.
This Na'vi also holds the bowstring only by the last bones of her digits, and this tells that the bow is not very powerful at all. A more powerful bow would need the fingers curved more tightly around the string, not in a fist of course, but a little more than this.

This drawing shows a Na'vi in a very strange position for shooting. The arrow is too thick and heavy for her and that bow, it's tip not attached properly, but asymmetrically. The arrow is held between the fingers of the bow hand, which is always wrong. The bow is bends too much at the end of the limbs and not enough elsewhere. The string would slip off the nocks even though it is unnecessarily attached to six points instead of the needed two.

This bow is again very different than the ones used by Na'vi in Avatar. It is much shorter, but in Earth it would probably be a working bow. The arrow is on the left side of the bow, like is usual in European archery, but the Na'vi use in on the side of the thumb. This Na'vi/Avatar is also right handed, unlike Na'vi in the film. The fingers of the string hand are not tight enoughly secured around the arrow, it would fall off the string. The Na'vi here also aims with the arrow close to the eye, which is both unnecessary, and the Na'vi never do it in the film, they shoot much lower, below the chin level. This arrowtip is also way too large.

This bow is horrible, it has angles that it shouldn't have and it doesn't bend. Looks like it is just a stick with a rubber band attached to it. Beginner's drawing mistake regarding bows.

Avatar revisited

In continuation to my update of the archery review of Hunger Games, I decided to re-review James Cameron's Avatar, since that blog post had already got recent comments criticising my critique of it. I'm always glad that my blog posts stir comments, so keep them coming! Here it is for this time:

Avatar (James Cameron's)

This is a shortened version of the blog post from five years ago I did concerning archery on James Cameron's Avatar (2009). Nothing of importance is removed. You can read the original blog post here.



Avatar’s archery is depicted all wrong.

Mistakes:

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


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


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


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


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

Some of the comments were disagreeing with my criticism, and here they are (some dissected into several parts for clarifying different arguments):

Freeyutube: "But using only two fingers should work fine also (we can read that medieval english archers used only 2 finger to draw their longbows)."

No, medieval English archers mainly used three fingers to draw their bows, not two. This is a popular misconception spread around in history books and populistic publications that do not check their sources. Most pictorial evidence from the middle ages show three fingered grips and there are historical sources to tell this is the way they shot. A powerful war bow benefits from the use of the third finger, and it would be disadvantageous to use two fingers to draw it.

Freeyutube: "And about using a "reversed grip" with the arrow on the usual side of the bow, the russian Seregedel's school shows it is feasible."

Yes, I've seen that video of Iza Privezenceva shooting with a reversed grip (which I will discuss in a separate blog post), but there has to be a reason why they didn't do it historically. There is close to zero evidence that this technique would've been used historically. If it was somehow better surely it would've been used at least somewhere. It is entirely possible to practise yourself to be good at this technique, but it doesn't mean it would be better technique than some other, or that it would've been used historically somewhere. I think this technique is heavily related to the use of back quiver, since it's difficult to draw arrows quickly from the back. Maybe the Russian woman use this technique to somewhat counterbalance the back quiver hindrance. When really the solution would be to use a hip quiver or when wanting to be extremely quick, to hold the arrows in the hand while shooting.

Matthew: "Just because you don’t like the way it looked and haven’t done your research, doesn’t mean that method wasn’t used. If you do your research you will find that several cultures throughout history have used this method for war and hunting. If you reverse everything in the picture to show right handed shooting you will see that the placement is a lot more correct then you realize."

I have done my research, thanks for asking. The reverse grip method is not well documented anywhere in the World. There are few sketchy pictorial pieces that might or might not depict that, and I will discuss them in a later blog post. If it was done somewhere historically, it must've been so insignificant an instance that we don't know much about it. More probably it wasn't done in any significant scale, since it's unintuitive and doesn't offer anything that a regular grip couldn't. If you know some evidence that reverse grip was indeed used by "several cultures throughout history" "for war and hunting" please show me the evidence. Pictures would be nice. But I don't think this evidence exists. If it does, I'm more than happy to correct myself. It's not that I would be preaching the ultimate truth, I just look at the evidence and make deductions based on that.

Matthew: "About the fletchings you say it needs 3 fletchings to fly properly but they only used 2 and that is completely native style, and the avatars are more like natives on steroids if you will. You are focused on the European style archery and are closed minded to other styles both historical and current."

It is indeed true that some arrows were made using only two feathers for their fletching. In worldwide scale this is really rare, but for example some native American peoples did use two fletched arrows, you are right in that. However their arrows are usually fletched a bit differently than the CGI ones used for Na'vi in the film. In Avatar, the two fletchings are straight opposite of each other, and form a flat surfice, they are not curved at all. When actual native Americans (for example Cherokee) did their arrows with the two-fletch style, they often curved the feathers helically around the arrow shaft, and/or formed the feathers very differently than this. I will make a blog post of those in the future too.

Arrows in Avatar have two fletchings, forming a two-dimensional plane. While this is possible to do and the arrows will fly of course when shot from a bow, it would be more beneficial to have either three fletchings, or the two fletchings turned helically around the arrowshaft like in the third picture, ot cut differently from the feathers like in the fourth picture. The photos represent some Native American (Cherokee) style fletchings.

Matthew: "You have drawn a longbow there but not all cultures used the longbow like the bow that the chief that have his bow to Navi when he died is similar to a horse bow there is even proof of some South American style bows made that way."

I only drew there a long bow, not meant to be "the English/Welsh/European Longbow". It is there only to show that the fistmele of the Na'vi bow is huge. But there I have actually made a mistake by looking at the picture. I thought five years ago that in this picture the bow in undrawn. But now when I look it closer I see that the arrow is on the string and while Neytiri doesn't draw the arrow and string back with her string hand, the bow is still drawn to a degree, and she just holds the arrow there with her bow hand. This can be seen by the fact that the bowstring makes an angle at the arrow nock, which I didn't notice before. This unproves my criticism of the too big fistmele, since we can see from other pictures that the fistmele in this bow is in the limits of possibility.

Upon closer inspection I noticed that the bow is in a semi-drawn position, the string making an angle at the nock of the arrow (strengthened with a red line).

But now when inspecting the bow again, I want to talk about another point regarding to it. This is the ceremonial bow of the Na'vi, owned by Neytiris father, until she inherited it from him. It is different from the regular Na'vi bows by the fact that it has these blue blade-like objects stuck in it. From the picture above you can see that the bow limbs are bifurcated so that the blade-part goes between the halves of the limb. The bowstring is then split into two near it's end and both ends are attached to the bifurcated bow limbs.

This design is absolutely ridiculous. There is no point of making a bow like this. It might look cool to some modern viewers, but this whole construction would make the bow weaker both in shooting power and in integral strength. Also a lot heavier with those large blades, and more cumbersome and difficult to carry around. I admit it's a ceremonial bow, but it's been seen used for shooting in the film, so it is clearly also intended for hunting/combat, not just as decoration.

There's a reason blades were never attached into bows. Bows are delicated weapons, if they are used to hit things they might break. That's why archers usually had a back-up weapon in case they got into close combat or otherwise couldn't use their bow anymore. In Europe that usually was a sword, dagger or an axe, could've been something else in pre-Columbian America, on which the Na'vi are based. Anyway, nobody in history used their bows to hit things, since the bows could break, and there were more useful things to hit people with than bows. So blades were never attached to bows anywhere in the world.

Integrating these huge blades in the centre-line of the bow has resulted in the bow limbs being cut in hald, since they have to bend and travel through the blades. That makes the bow limbs structurally weaker, they might break more easily, and it also diminishes the power of the bow. Attaching the string becomes extra hard, since it has four nocking points instead of just two, and a bowstring needs to de detached when the bow is not used, since otherwise it will strain the power out of the bow in the long run.

So, I like to present the updated version of my criticism of the archery in Avatar as follows:

Mistakes and updates:

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


2. This string grip is reversed. The moviemakers apparently thought this would look more “alien” to us. It is unintuitive and unnecessary form, without much precedence in the real history of the World, although some modern archers have emplyed this technique more or less succesfully.


3. I originally draw this circle here to point where the arrow is traditionally drawn. However an overdraw isn't always a mistake, and longer arrows can indeed be "overdrawn". Neither does the anchor point of the arrow be near the eyes, it can really be anywhere.


4. The fletchings of arrows in this movie are made either from feathers, or from insect wings. That is not a mistake, since fletching can be made of different materials (although feathers would be best), but the number of feathers on these arrows is unusual. Based on the screencaptures I can only see two feathers (or bug wings) in the arrows. Most arrows have three feathers giving it a good spin. This rotation makes the aim more accurate. Two-feathered arrows however do occur in the real World, but they are rare and often times contructed differently than these.


5. The distance between bows arc and string, called fistmele or brace height, should be the length of the archers fist and a protruding thumb (thumbs-up-hand) for a longbow. For recurve bows this can be greater. I originally misinterpreted the image so that I though the fistmele was way too big. It's actually not.
6. The Na'ci ceremonial bow has huge blades stuck right in the middle axis of it, splitting the bow limbs in half. This design, while it might look cool, is highly impractical and dminishes both the bows integral strength and it's shooting power. There is no reason anybody (human or alien) would ever construct a bow like this.

With this I will close this case for now. Have a nice day everybody and thanks for your comments!

Hunger Games revisited

One of the earliest posts on this blog of mine (the fifth one to be exact) was a review of archery of Hunger Games (the first film probably), based on one picture of the character of Katniss. That blog post was written over five years ago in Janyary 2015, and it got a comment now in 2020. Because of the comment that heavily criticised my critique, I decided to do a revisit to that blog post and look the source material again. So here it is, a revisited Hunger Games archery review. Yes, based on the same picture again, I don't want to actually watch the movie.

Here is a little bit shortened version of the original blog post. Nothing of importance is removed and the original blog post is still there if you want to read it.

 

Mistakes:

1. Katniss is supposed to be extremely skilled with a bow, but still in this photo she doesn’t really know what she’s doing. The first mistake which causes other errors, is that she has nocked the arrow too high on the string. The arrow should be as close to the center point of the bow string as possible. It cannot be in the exact center, since the hand holding the bow forces the arrow travel above it, so it’s half a fist away from the center. But that’s not much. In this picture the arrow is way too high, which makes the whole bow tilt backwards, as you can clearly see. The red arrow number 1 shows where would be the correct nocking point on the string for arrows.

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

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

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

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


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


This was the comment I got:

Pixa Pirata: "You are incorrect, and should stop talking out your backside. If she were to shoot your way, the arrow would immediately go up at a 20-30 degree angle give or take a few degrees upon release. With the tips of the bow straight up and down, the arrow needs to nock level with the rest, which typically puts the arrow well above the center point. Long arrows are fine, and the fletching is feathers, which is typical for someone who made their own bow and arrows as her character did in the movie. Back quivers are for people that move around, not like people who stand still and shoot a target indoors, like you pretend to do. You are just utterly wrong on every point here."

Now I do appreciate all feedback, but when it is misguided and hostile, I don't appreciate it as much as when it is benign and constructive criticism. Let's deconstruct this comment in order to get the points from there.

"If she were to shoot your way, the arrow would immediately go up at a 20-30 degree angle give or take a few degrees upon release."

I disagree and I'll show you why in a moment.

"With the tips of the bow straight up and down, the arrow needs to nock level with the rest, which typically puts the arrow well above the center point."

I know this and I acknowledged it in the blog post. I said: "It [the arrow] cannot be in the exact center [of the string], since the hand holding the bow forces the arrow travel above it, so it’s half a fist away from the center." Maybe this was badly worded, since English is not my native language, but I think I made it clear that the arrow will be nocked above the center of the string. Not by much though. Katniss have nocked it way too much above the center here. Now I will demonstrate.

I made this new diagram to better illustrate how poor Katniss' form really is. I turned the image for better viewing and replaced the missing limb of the bow (from outside the picture frame) with a copy of the other limb of the bow. I put the bow inside a rectangle so you see it's level and symmetrical.
There's one red line marking the centre of the rectangle (and bow inside it). I never claimed the arrow should be at the exact center of the bow and string, since that is not the case. Archer's hand will hold the bow from the center, so the arrow has to go above the bow hand. That's why it's also nocked above the center point of the bowstring. I estimated the proper point for nocking to be 46% of the length of the string from the upper nock of the bow. That leaves 54% of the string under the arrow. This is about the point I showed in the original blog post too.

Now Jennifer Lawrence has nocked her arrow at approximately 38% of the length of the string from the upper nock of the bow, leaving 62% of the string under the bow. This is way too much, and by looking at the picture I would estimate the arrow should be about ten centimeters lower on the string. Nocking the arrow too high causes serious problems with shooting. If Katniss is supposed to be an expert archer, this is a very poor image to illustrate that. She looks like a total newbie. I wonder why on Earth did they choose that failed picture as a promotional still for the film?

Let's continue to other pieces of criticism.

"Long arrows are fine"

Long arrows are used in some native cultures for hunting fish for example. There is no added benefit for this long arrows in a scenario Katniss is put in. While she obviously can use these very long arrows, shorter ones would be easier to use for her, and this just makes it look these arrows were made for somebody with much longer arms. Those long arrows would be extremely difficult tu pull out of a back quiver too. In order for that to succeed the arrows cannot be much longer than the outstreched arm of the archer.

"and the fletching is feathers, which is typical for someone who made their own bow and arrows as her character did in the movie."

I didn't say that feather fletching wouldn't be fine. I said that these feathers look very worn out. Maybe she uses arrows that have been shot many times already? Maybe there's an explanation for this in the movie, but probably they've just been used for practise of the actress.

Look at that fletching, it is in terrible shape compared to a new one.

"Back quivers are for people that move around, not like people who stand still and shoot a target indoors, like you pretend to do."

Historically there's very little evidence for the use of back quivers at all. There is no grounds for a statement that a back quiver would be for people who move around. I think hip quivers are exceptionally better for moving around than back quivers, for several reasons. Most peoples in history have used hip quivers, both on foot and on horseback, and most archery used in actual warfare was pretty mobile. Not at all like the stationary sports archery of today (where they do use back quivers). And I didn't pretend to do anything. I mostly shoot outdoors anyway.

"You are incorrect, and should stop talking out your backside. [...] You are just utterly wrong on every point here."

As I just demonstrated, I was actually right on every point I made. You also didn't comment on mistake no. 2, since you knew I were right on that one too. It was about the arrow falling off from the top of her hand. Here:

Pretty terrible. Beginners mistakes.

I think that's all for this time. Thank you all for commenting. I do this for you. ;)