Do not lean back when shooting!

 

Many mistakes in today's drawing, which isn't a bad drawing expect the archery part in it. Which is, the main part unfortunately. 

Mistakes:

1. The bow is way too thick, this elf woman wouldn't be able to shoot with it, nor anybody else. Especially a bow this short should be much thinner, at least by half.

2. There is nothing where the bowstring would attach, it just disappears inside the ends of the bow. The bostring in reality forms loops that are put in nocks in the bow's ends.

3. The arrowtip is huge, too large for this arrow shaft. The arrow is also too short, or drawn too much back, since the arrowtip touches the bow's arc, which it shouldn't do.

4. The arrow goes on the right side of the bow, which is very unusual (I would almost say wrong, but there are a few rare medieval illustrations like this) for Mediterranean style shooting, and she should hold the arrow there with her thumb if shooting from the right side, otherwise the arrow would drop off too easily.

5. Mediterranean draw uses three fingers, she seems to use only two, which is unnecessarily harder. The bowstring doesn't seem to go behind the drawing fingers, rather through them.

6. The fletching of this arrow is pathetic, the feathers are both way too small to offer anything to the arrow (their purpose is to guide the flight of the arrow, making it more accurate), and localted way too back on the arrowshaft, so much so that they touch the drawing hand, which they shouldn't do.

7. She is not wearing a quiver nor any spare arrows anywhere. Not a very wise choice.

 

I also want to point out another thing, about her posture.

 

8. The posture is all wrong. People often draw female archers leaning backwards from their pelvis, to make them look sexier, but this is not a good posture for shooting a bow. Rather they should be leaning forwards, as was done both historically and today. This employs the big back muscles (stronger than just the arms), which gives maximum power to the shot. I have included a picture from a book "Archery Anatomy" (1995) by Ray Axford that depicts the correct posture for a modern archer that uses his back muscles more by leaning forward. I replicated the lines of his body in green, and the lines of the elf girl in red and superimposed them on top of each other so you can clearly see how much differene there is in the postures.

I have a request to draughtsmen and -women, please start to draw correct positions, and do not make your (lady) archers lean back to make them sexier, since it's just bad archery.

Sometimes you need to lean back in order to shoot very high, but this is not the case with this or any other drawing that employs this trope of backwards leaning women.

How not to (Corel) draw a bow

If this really is an official Disney image, and not just some random fan picture, I'm really surprised. This looks so badly Photoshopped and fake that I have almost no words.

Now that may have been an over-exaggeration, I do have words, but not very nice ones. Here they come, the mistakes:

1. This picture is so obviously fake that it hurts my eyes. I can see that the woman, the horse and the background are all composited together in an editors basement, and not captured in Scottish highlands as they should be. But the worst thing is that I think they computer generated the bow. It looks like she hadn't had a real bow, if anything, in her hands, since the positioning of the bow is unrealistic and the arms of the woman don't look like they would be doing any activity that require muscle tension, like drawing a bow. If she had a bow in hand, she didn't draw it, somebody else drew it in the computer later. I cannot figure out why would they do this instead of giving her a real bow. If they really are Disney, there should be no problem of getting a real bow.
A real bow would bend like I have drawn in the picture, this bow doesn't, so it probably doesn't exist. It's also way too thick for her.

2. I already said that the arms don't look like they would really be drawing the bow. This arms elbow is pointing too low. The arrow is also too low for this style of (European) shooting, but it is done so that it wouldn't obstruct the viewers view to her face. Beauty is more important than practicality it seems.

3. The arrow has fallen off from the top of the bowhand here, or if the arrow didn't exist when they took the photo of the woman, then it is Photoshopped too low.

4. Now there actually is a hip quiver, which in itself is a good thing. But it is way too loosely attached on the hips with that belt so that it can jump all around while riding and possibly dropping the arrows. It also looks like that the quiver terminates somewhere inside the flowing dress way before it shouls stop (the arrows are too short then, this seems like another Photoshop mistake).

The lesson learned today: do everything you can before the camera takes the pictures, not in the editing phase with a computer. Photoshopped photos look always edited and fake.

Glamour archery, not very glamorous

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

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