Faceless space archer

 

Another drawing here. And another woman. This time without a top, and without a face. I guess he drew only the important parts for him. But mistakes too:

1. The bowstring goes from the wrong side of the arm. It is impossible to shoot like this! A horrible mistake, which could've been avoided with even a small amount of thinking, that hasn't been involved in the making of this drawing.

2. The infamous reverse grip. This is not a standard way of gripping the arrow. Also the string goes way too deep in the fist. This is just a mess.

3. There are a lot of things attached to the arrow shaft, making shooting it impossible, since the spikes would stick to the bow arc when released. Ludicrous!

4. The arrowtip is way too large and heavy, Even if the arrow would fly out of the bow, it would not fly more than a few meters and just drop head first to the ground.

5. The arrow is also too short. This makes its flight distance even lesser. Also the fletching sucks big time, it's another mess.

6. No spare arrows or a quiver anywhere to be seen. 

This character only has one arrow, and it's the worst I've seen. And she cannot hold the bow right. Not a very professional archer I would say. Also, where's her face?!?

Dryads from Witcher's world

I love the world of the Witcher. I read the first book not too long ago, and I've played through the first and second games. Unfortunately I haven't yet had time to read rest of the series as well as play the third game. But they are on my list as soon as I can manage to have some (read = a lot of) free time. I've also seen the first season of the Netflix series, but in my opinion it's not nearly as good as the books or games. It is too dull, too grey, not funny enough, and I hate the costumes, and some choices made in the casting. Geralt himself is fine, although he could do more than just grunt and be angry all the time. Hopefully the second season corrects the mistakes that are possible to correct.

I was pointed out recently that a post of mine that I thought of having been a half-orc woman, was actually a dryad from the Witcher 3's Gwent cards (a minigame inside the game). And it's true of course, how could I have missed that! Well, I haven't yet played the third game at all, and although this same dryad was in the first game, I didn't recognise her. I just didn't connect the dots in my mind. Generic female half-orcs do look similar, I will say in my defense. Anyway, my bad, now the blog post is correctly titled, and I got inspiration from that to make this post concerning the dryads in the world of Witcher.

 

This dryad is jumping while shooting. Hard, but certainly possible. The arching of the back that far is not good form though, much more power you get by leaning forwards from the pelvis with a straight back. But then again she's leaping in the air. The back arching this way is done to make her more sexy of course, since men are naturally drawn to arched backs like this, as science has shown. On to the archery mistakes:

1. If your bow has started to grow leaves, it's made of way too fresh wood! The bowstave should dry a long time before making a bow out of it, one year is not a bad time. Making bow out of fresh wood is a bad idea, since wood is a living material and the properties of the bow would change when the wood dries, ruining the bow's carefully designed performance abilities.
2. Making a bow out of a tree branch like this is also the worst idea. Real self bows are and always were made of one piece of wood, carved out of a tree trunk at least twice if not four times larger in diameter than the finished bow. So there's a lot of material to remove to make the bow in desired shape. Picking a sprout dividing into several branches is bad, as is the fact that this looks like the very tip of a tree, which would make it unsuitable for a bow. For example English longbows were made of the part of a yew tree where the heartwood and sapwood meet, to make the belly of the bow (heartwood) more resistant to pressure and the back of the bow (sapwood) more resistant to stretching.
3. The fistmele (distance between the bow handle and the bowstring) is way too big here. It should only be about hald of this distance. This bow has too short bowstring. It make the shot less powerful because of the wasted distance where the string could still pull the arrow forward.
4. Where are her arrows? There are no quiver or any spare arrows to be seen.

 

Eithné, queen of the Dryads and ruler of the Brokilon forest, as seen in the now defunct The Witcher Battle Arena illustration. The maker of this drawing has never seen human legs in his life, since the character has an entire leg growing out of her knee, the leg certainly doesn't start from the pelvis, like legs usually do. I know perpective and anatomy can be hard, but not this hard! Look at a human being, look at a photograph, look at a mirror, you have legs don't you?

Also the dryads are described as slender and small in the books, so how come this forest lady has silicone boobs?

On to the archery mistakes:

1. I searched for a moment where the bowstring actually goes. It is blurred in this image, in the ah-so-fashionable-motion-blur-effect, which they think makes drawings look like photos, but is just becoming annoying at this point since its serious overuse in concept art. It's a cheap Photoshop trick that requires no painting skills. But I was supposed to tak about archery stuff! Okay, okay, the bowstring does not touch the arrow. When the bowstring is released and is still angled like this, the arrow has not yet left the string. Only at the point when the bowstring is completely straight, thearrow leaves the string. What is drawn here cannot happen in reality.
2. This elbow is too high, and so is the shoulder of this same arm. It's bad form that does not use the back muscles correctly.
3. No spare arrows or a quiver anywhere, again. Do the dryads grow arrows out of themselves? Where do they come from?!? 
4. The bow handle is way too long. A bow is not a two handed weapon like a longsword, a space for only one hand is needed in the handle part. Too long handle takes space away from the bending arc of the bow, making it not as powerful as it could be.
   

 

 

 This picture I found from the Witcher wiki, and it was said to depict a dryad. It has grave mistakes:

1. The bowstring goes from the outside of the bow arm! This is very bad mistake, which not even a beginner would think of doing while actually holding a bow, but is alarmingly common in drawings. It happens so that the drawer first sketches the character and the bow in a certain position, and then don't realise where the bowstring should go. In some cases when the bow is canted to a ridiculous position, like completely sideways, there is no space for drawing the string under the arm, so they draw it over it thinking it must be so. It's wrong!
2. The arrow hand is upside down, grabbing the string the wrong way. We should see the palm of her hand in this picture. You might argue that maybe she's just placing the arrow there on the string like this and the changing her hand position, but I don't think the drawer has thought it that much.
3. The arrow is not nocked where it should be nocked. I drew a line to show you where the arrow should approximately be (if everything else would be correct with her bow handling, which isn't).
4. The back quiver. Not the most useful thing to have. Also making it even less useful you can put it on the wrong shoulder like this dryad has. Impossible to take the arrows from there. The length of the arm is just not long enough to draw arrows over the opposite shoulder. Also all the arrows in the quiver are broken, since they come out in a very wrong angle compared to the scabbard.

 

 

I know this is not a dryad, but a drawing of Braenn, a human woman, who was raised by the dryads. I just came by this picture, so decided to include it here because of the subject. Mistakes include:

1. Drawing the bow halfway while not shooting. One of the more common mistakes in drawings. Even a halfway draw is tiring to keep up, so no archer would ever do this. Traditional bows are not like modern compound bows where you can hold the bow for a long time while aiming. This girl is not even aiming, so what's the point of drawing the bow like this? There is none!
2. Two finger mediterranean draw, and the posture of the hand is very awkward. Three fingers would be better in this case.
3. A back quiver. Also on the wrong shoulder, so completely impossible to use.
4. The arrow is too short. The bow is half drawn, but there's not much arrow left to be drawn. It should be some twenty centimeters longer. Also the handle of the bow is unnecessarily long.

 

 

I will end this post with this lovely image of a dryad mother and her child, making arrows together. The picture is so lovely I don't want to ruin it with my red numbers, but it isn't without mistakes either:

1. The arrows are way too short. They should be almost double this length. The perspective alone cannot explain their shortness.
2. The feathers her child has gathered are lovely, but all different. You should use the feathers of the same bird (species) in an arrow, or at least very similar to each other (yes, sometimes people make the cock feather out of different species, but historically they tended to be all the same). Some species (like goose), are considered better for fletching arrows than others. You should even use the feathers from the same wing for the best results (so not mixing left and right wing feathers, since they curve in the opposite directions). Maybe the child didn't know this?
   
3. Why is she holding the thread between her teeth like that? I've fletched my own arrows with feathers and string, and I never needed to do this. I cannot understand what would be the point, since it's not even the end of the string. You can tighten it with you fingers too.

 

This is it for now, see you next time!

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.

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.

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.

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 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!

Another one of those elvesses

Why is it that all elves are female? I know why, it's because men (and boys [and men-children]) draw these pictures with one hand in their pocket. That pocket that has a hole in the bottom you know. But seriously think about how an elven population could sustain itself if it's only made of up women? Are elves a kind of fantasy race such as Amazons who only go to men when they want to reproduce, kill all their boy children and live in solitude? Or is it that gender roles are reversed in elven societies, so that elven women do all the fighting stuff (you know, archery is fighting when done against people and not animals, in which case it is hunting), and elf-men are take care of the home and children?

These scenarios seem unlikely at best. But according to contemporary pictorial evidence, all elves seem to be women.
Except Cary Elwes of course!


Back to business. That Elder Scrolls inspired (quod green glass sword) elvess (?, female elf) has many mistakes in her archery style, so probably she's just a poser with a bow, but without any knowledge of how to shoot with it.

1. Let's start with the bow as always. It's hoorrible, also as always. Sad. This bulky spiky thing would not actually work as a bow, so maybe she should just throw it at enemies instead of trying to shoot with it.

2. The string is not attached to the end of the bow limbs, as it should. The fistmele is also too great.

3. This is a reverse grip of the arrow. There is no point of doing this, and to my knowledge, no evidence of anyone ever doing it.

4. This is the place where the arrow should be nocked. About the center of the bowstring (technically usually one fist above the center, depending on bow type though), but this arrow is nowhere near the center. This arrow would hit the ground if shooting it is possible at all.

5. Back quiver. And on the wrong shoulder for a right handed person. Impossible to get the arrows from there.

6. The arrow has a huge arrowtip, which would be too heavy for an actualy arrow that is intended to be shot from a bow.

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!

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.

Medusa drawing (Harryhausen style)

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

Anyway, to the archery mistakes:

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

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

Isis spreads terror with a "bow"

These pictures are from a trailer of an online videogame called Smite. I don't really care about games in which you just fight against other nerds with candy graphic characters in a low polygon environment. Complete waste of time, as well as boring game design.

The trailer showed this obviously (clichéd) Egyptian goddess, who cannot be anyone else than Isis, since Isis is the only human faced Egyptian goddess the general public knows about (how about Maat anyone?)

Like all this game's female characters, our friend Isis here is dressed in a very revealing attire, which in this case is blatantly copied from Anaksunamun's similarly skimpy and also golden outfit from the film Mummy (1999) (the yellow lipstick is also same). They thought I didn't remember, didn't they? Anyway, the dress has to be either glued on her fake breasts, or then it's just bodypaint, which seems quite likely here. Animation of this trailer is especially bad, since it has no feel of gravity or realism in any sense of the word. The characters are just massless CGI-lumps flying everywhere at the same time. How about motion capture the next time guys?

But now to the mistakes, regarding the thing they call archery in this video:

1. This "bow" has three strings. THREE (3) STRINGS!!! What in the actual afterlife is this? Bows have one bowstring for a reason. And we will come to that later. Three strings in this "bow" makes this one of the (if not THE) worst depiction of a bow in the history of the Universe.
2. What are these three spikes in each end of the bow? They severely disturb the bowstring(s). They can even brake it/them (if it/they would not be made out of "magical glowing substance").
3. Reverse grip in the string hand. Later she uses this hand the other side up, so this is just a mistake.
4. What is this Kheperi-shaped golden shield with a large saphire doing in this "bow"? This is the size of the steel bucklers some archers used in later medieval times, but it was never attached to the bow itself of course, and never used at the same time with the bow. It only disturbs shooting more. The bow is not meant for blocking anything, it will brake.
5. Fire arrows, too much fire arrows! Why won't regular arrows do? Do they think people die more if they are penetrated with an arrow which is also on fire? Because real fire arrows were constructed differently than normal arrows, they were slower and penetrated less, so they'd be actually less dangerous against other people. Thus they were never used against humans, only (VERY RARELY!) against some objects which had to be set on fire.
6. This (left) is the side of the bow the arrows should (usually, and in this case) go, not the right side.
7. What are these blades doing in this monstrosity? Bows are not meant for hitting, but shooting! It won't last long as a mêlée weapon. Also these metal blades make the "bow" weight a ton. In this picture we can see that it more resembles an ancient harp than a bow. Maybe it's for playing music, and not fighting at all? Would make more sense.
8. Were are her arrows? There is no quiver to be seen or any spare arrows anywhere. That is a bad fighting plan.
9. Three arrows at once. While it is possible to shoot three arrows at once (I've done it) it's it not good to do so. The aim is terrible and they also have less power than one arrow would have. At least two arrows are also wasted if shooting at the same target. The arrows are also impossible to hold here, that's why I drew this circle.
10. WHAT, she releases one string at a time!!! And that actually works?!? The makers of this video has no knowledge of archery at all it seems now. The bow arc is the one which flexes and gives the power to the arrows, the string does not stretch! If a bow would have three strings it would do nothing, since it would be (theoretically) possible to shoot the three arrows at the same time, not one after another without flexing the bow again. This is just pure nonsense and a crappy idea from start to finish! Shame on you game maker dudes!
11. This bow is also about 10 times too thick. It wouldn't bend at all, but it seems like a minor mistake compared to the last one, even though this'd be a major mistake in a piece which would be otherwise decently designed. This is not.
12. Why is she having this "glove"? Is it supposed to be archers glove? Since this does only cover the area which does not touch anything while shooting, so it's completely useless. Archers glove should cover the first three fingers, not just knuckles! Also the larger bracer is in the right hand, when it would be better on the left, but they are here to bring the "Egyptian" feel anyway, even though Egyptians didn't use these kind of bracers.

Good, hahaha, are you kidding me?!?
Our Isis (not to be confused with the infamous terrorist organization, which boasts with a name of a false god (in their belief system)) does not have a bow here. This is not a bow, this terror is something else, straight from Ammit's rectum.

P.S.
Oh, now I noticed that the arrows don't have fletching at all, but whatever, this disaster couldn't be any worse.

Ashe the Frost Archer (from League of Legends)

OH, BY THE GODS OF EVERY RELIGION IN EVERY PLANET THAT HAS LIFE ON IT!!!
This is horrible beyond any words. And I have a broad vocabulary. I will still try...

This picture... this picture might very well be the worst piece of imagery my eyes have ever have the unpleasantness to witness. Not only it's the worst archery picture of all time by far, I also cannot get in my mind any worse memory relating to a visual stimulant.

The maker of this picture, who is not entitled to be called an artist, not even a concept artist, has absolutely zero knowledge relating to anything he's trying to portray; correct anatomy, originality, artisticality, archery, realism, interestingness and sense of style all shine of their absence while overused clichés, childish sexism and all kinds of physical errors are well represented. Actually the knowledge of how to draw different 'things' of the maker of this picture must be below zero, so bad this is.


Mistakes, oh so bad and oh so numerous:

1. The bow is being held in horizontal way, which is a very bad mistake. But it's nothing to compared to the second one!
2. The string goes OVER the bow arm!!! What? Excuse me, but what again?!? Even a basic understanding of bows and archery would tell anyone that the bow string does not go over the bow arm. It would go under if the bow would be held in this stupid position, and it would be on the inside of the arm if the bow would being held properly in vertical position. Shame on you, this is the worst mistake you can make! But oh no, it's not the last! There are plenty others.
3. This is not any real grip of the string. Of course the maker of this picture (let's call that boy "motp") had no idea of the real grip, and it would be difficult to do in this angle anyway. Our oversexualized fantasy female here is pulling the string with two fingers, instead of three, and more importantly, her hand is the wrong way up. This is a very weak grip.
4. Motp also hasn't looked any reference because he doesn't know which holds the arrows on the string. Of course the archer's string hand! The arrows here doesn't even go anywhere near the hand, they just kind of are on the string somewhere. The aim would be uncontrollable and they arrows wouldn't even probably keep on the string while drawing.
5. Hasn't motp ever even seen a real arrow? I think not, since even a child can draw better arrows. Everybody knows that an arow has a tip (the sharp often triangular shaped thing on it's front end), a shaft (a rod of wood) and fletching (the three feathers at the back end), but these arrows lack the last one altogether. Yes, the arrows can fly without the fletching, but first of all, nobody ever would've made them like this, unless they are uneducated punks, and secondly without the fletching the arrows flight is not very controllable. It will fly more straight with the fletching.
6. The arrow tips weight a kilo! They are way too thick. Not only they would drastically reduce the flight distance of the arrows to some lousy five meters, they would also turn the arrows tip down while flying, so if they somehow magically would hit any target, they would hit it with the right side up front. Also this thick arrowheads make them harder to penetrate any form of defensive equipment. Even spearheads, which can be much longer, are never this thick. It would just be completely stupid. And waste of material. These arrow tips are also too large in every other direction, despite of the proposed perspective of the picture.
7. But it doesn't matter, since Ashe is using three arrows at once. And when she's not even holding the nocks (the little things on the back end of the arrows which have slots where the bow string goes, and which nobody knows of unfortunately) in her hand, she has none control over where the arrows will fly. Absolutely zero. She wouldn't hit a barn door from three feet distance. The arrows are also positioned pointing all in different directions, and as everyone should know, aiming at more than one direction (Yes, aim at them!) at the time is impossible, so all these arrows would miss their targets by a wide margin. Good job, motp! Not really, this was sarcasm.
8. Since this girl is called "the frost archer" her bow is probably supposed to be made of ice. Well... no, and... no again. This is fantasy of course, and maybe it's some magical ice, but still it's beyond stupid. Can't the arrows just have some frost magic on them, does the arrows and the bow have to be made of real ice? It doesn't make any sense. You know, there are fantasy, and then there are this thing, which would be called unreality, when everything is so unreal that it's only stupid. Look for Lord of the Rings, that's high fantasy for you, which is realistic at the same time! That's the stuff most people like, not counting some silly boys just hitting puberty of course.
9. Where is the quiver (the holder for the rest of the arrows in case you didn't know that either). And, as you also didn't know, it should be here, at the waist level, hanging from a belt. Back quivers are just a pop culture myth. In other pictures of this character I have seen that – of course – she has a back quiver. What else to expect from a game this stupid anyway.
10. This stance is a very bad archery form. I can't imagine any more silly position of one's limbs and body than this. It would be stupid and impossible to do without assistance even while staying still. But now she's also trying to shoot arrows while being in this uncomfortablest of positions. Of course we all – who are not guided by hormones alone – know that the only reason this character is in this position, is that the motp is a young horny male who wants to draw "beautiful" (= unrealistic, sexist, clichéd and childish manga characters)  females who he can drool at. That's why she hasn't got any real clothes on her. That's why she's positioned in the infamous boobs-and-butt pose (Oh, don't know what that is? Try Escher Girls for once!).

"Good", hahahahaha, are you kidding me?

Absolutely positively negative amount of goodness can be found in this drawing. It's so profoundly an epic fail that when I tried to make a corrected version of it, I couldn't. I just ended up censoring the whole picture, since it gives a totally mistaken and erroneous view of archery, bows and arrows. Correcting it would mean starting all over again from scratch, and probably getting a thorough brainwash before it, since this monstrosity has left some deep scars in all of it's viewers psyche. This drawing is harmful to the portrayal of archery, women, fantasy genre and to the society as whole, and the motp should be in jail because of it.

Stupid picture from stupid game.

Blue spiky archer drawing

 

This blue-glowing man with mirrored face halves has some strange spikes growing out of him. If that happened to me, I would go to the doctor immediately. Maybe he should too.

Mistakes:

1. Most probably unintentional left-handedness.
2. Ridiculous bow constructed of blue spikes which hold together only with magic.
3. Arrows which cannot be nocked on the string since they have to pointy ends!
4. Reverse grip of the string hand. And utterly wrong in all other ways too.
5. Quiver on the back. And no fletching on the arrows.

Bard statue (from Hobbit)

This is a statuette of Bard the Bowman from the Hobbit movies. This Orlando Bloom look-a-like has some serious issues with his plastic copy.


Mistakes:

1. The bow is way overdrawn, ridiculously so. I've drawn the proper draw distance for the bow in light white for comparison. This much overdrawing would require an immense amount of strength, and it could probably even break the bow. If the bow holds the stress, the accuracy of the shot would not be very good. This would also require huge arrows, the size of a javelin (throwing spear) almost. Which brings us to the next point...
2. This long arrows cannot be carried on a back quiver. They are impossible to draw from there. They must be attached to somewhere else. Otherwise Bard has to remove his quiver from his back in order to draw new arrows from there.
3. The grip here is as flawed as it is in the movie, so in this regard this is an accurate reproduction of the movie character. Sad that he has to use this stupid reverse grip and draws with only two fingers. Certainly he would not have the strength in just two fingers to perform this huge overdraw. And reverse grip is less powerful anyway than the usual one.

Good:

Nothing really

Bard the Bowman (from Hobbit)

Hoah. Bard the Bowman. He who killed the mightiest dragon of all time, Smaug the Golden, in J.R.R. Tolkiens the Hobbit of course. Peter Jackson's movie version is now under my magnifying glass.
Bard should be one of the best archers in Middle Earth, at least among humans. Still his archery form is terrible and has all kinds of various errors. And the thing which he builds in seconds to kill the dragon, let me get to that in a minute...


Mistakes:

1. Sideways shooting. Apparent in pictures A, B, E and F. Bard shoots a lot of times sideways, which is a very bad technique only used in movies which don't do their research properly (i.e. almost all of them). In this way the bow cannot be fully drawn since the flank of the archer gets in the way of the bowstring. With a longbow, like bards', this is extremely bad form.
2. Bard uses two finger grip most of the time. This is also a bad idea, since with three fingers the grip would be sturdier and more powerful. Why use just two fingers? Bard needs extreme force in order to penetrate Smaugs thick scales, so using a two finger grip and shooting sideways are very stupid decisions. 
3. The moviemakers probably thought that because the Hobbit movie has so many different archer characters (Legolas, Tauriel, Kili, Bard), they had to invent some unique styles for each of them. This is completely unnecessary and leads to stupid decisions. Bard has given a 'style' of shooting with his string hand turned upside down. There is no proper evidence that this technique would have been ever used in history. This is because it's unnecessarily hard and useless form. It also makes the bow tilt more than usual (leading ultimately to 'sideways shooting').
4. In this promotional photo Bard grips the string with four fingers. Four finger grip is a beginner's mistake. Three fingers are enough, the least strong finger of the hand doesn't add to the force of the shot, it only make the string rotate around itself more than necessary when released. This can then effect the flight of the missile.
5. The arrow in this shot is on the wrong side of the bow. It is because the arrow is obviously computer generated and the editor don't know anything about archery. The arrow seems also a bit too long here. In the picture D you can see how many of the shooting scenes are actually filmed. Without an arrow at all! They are just added with computer in post production. This is a safety reason, and I can be okay with that, but they should ask on which side of the bow the arrow should go, if they don't know.
6. Back quiver. In the scene where Bard tries to shoot Smaug with his bow, he takes all the arrows out of the quiver, and that would be a smart move, since they are harder to get from behind a shoulder. A hip quiver would work just fine.
7. This thing! What is it? Bard's longbow broke in half (conveniently, and the string left untouched), then he stabs the severed limbs of the bow into thick wooden beams! Excuse me, but what?!? He has the strength of ten men, or then the beams are completely rotten, in which case the bow limbs would totally not keep in place there. The limbs are now some meter apart, so how does the string still reach from one end of the bow to another? He also uses his sons shoulder as a rest for the black arrow, which is the size of a spear. This self-made ballista could probably work if the string would be longer and thicker and the bow limbs would be properly mounted. Bot now... well, no. Why didn't Bard use the four-arm ballista, which was on top of some tower already, the one Girion (Bard's ancestor) used to shot black arrows towards Smaug in the first place?

Good:

Nice longbow, sad that it broke. No, you can't make a working ballista from a broken bow in a matter of seconds.

Avatar (James Cameron's)

Now is the time for the most highest-grossing movie of all time (if not adjusted to inflation, otherwise it loses it’s title to Gone With The Wind, a film made 70 years before this one), a movie which is basically a computer animation with some added human cameos, which stole it’s plot from Pocahontas and it’s visual milieu from Bug’s Life and Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, and which would not be the highest-grossing movie of all time without the newly introduced 3D-technology back at 2009. This is of course the famous Avatar (not to be confused with Avatar: The Last Airbender), which uses the infamous Papyrus as it’s title font.

But don’t get me all wrong, I actually enjoyed the movie, because of the (unintended?) visual similarity to Bug’s Life and Morrowind, which I love both.

Avatar’s archery is though depicted all wrong.

First of all, all the Na’vi (the blue super tall humans with tails, elf ears and slightly deformed facial features, who should look like “alien”, but not too alien, so that the viewers can still identify with them) are all left handed. It is because the director James Cameron and the lead actress Zoë Saldaña are both left handed and they decided to make all Na’vi lefties. I must admit this not to be a mistake this time, since they really decided it to be that way, but it bothered me for the whole movie.

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.

Good:

I can’t actually think of any. Yes, these could be tried to justify since they are “aliens” from another solar system, but it doesn’t substitute the physical errors with the bow, and arrows fletching, nor the beginners grip mistakes with both hands. Surely the Na’vi, who rely on archery with their society’s food supply, would have corrected these flaws in design when they notice them. Or then they are a really stupid species which repeat their predecessors mistakes form generation to generation.


P.S.

It would’ve been nice to see what the moviemakers would’ve came up with if the Na’vi would’ve had six limbs like every other species on that moon, not just the regular two arms and two legs.


Update

Five years later I have updated this review with some corrections, read it here.

Dragon Blade (Chinese movie)

These pictures are from an upcoming Chinese/Hong Kong movie Dragon Blade, which claims to be a historical action fantasy film, but has so nothing to do with actual history, that even naming the word ‘history’ anywhere near this movie is a horrid blasphemy!
The movie tells about a purely fictional story of ancient “Romans” fighting against ancient “Chinese” people over the control of the silk road, which in reality was in control of the Parthian empire which existed between Roman and Chinese empires. But this movie forgets it. It also forgets that the Chinese were the producers of silk and many other goods so they didn’t care to control the silk road. All the gear and weaponry presented in this movie are apparently designed by the director himself, who has obviously played too much World of Warcraft, so ridiculously impractical and unrealistic all the equipment are!

But now to the main topic.

Mistakes:

1. What is this this bow grip? Doesn’t seem very solid at all. Maybe the bow is too thick for this Chinese woman’s small hands. Her fingers just don’t reach around the bow’s grip properly. They shouldn’t have put so much fur and other stuff around the grip. Simple wooden grip would’ve been fine.

2. This string release method is very rarely used in history, since it’s so impractical. There’s always a possibility that it was only an artistic convention and not actually used at all. It’s much harder than any of the other release methods (this is mediterranean release, but the hand is turned upside down). Probably the moviemakers thought this looks cooler.

3. The woman has so much fur on her, that it makes shooting difficult. See in this circle how the fur gets in the way of the bow string. Not good, can effect the flight of the arrow.

4. This back quiver is so far away back that it would be quite difficult to even find the arrows with a hand backside the archers head, where she can’t see where the arrows are.

5. Sideways shooting is always bad. No one ever shot like this with a bow, or with any other weapon for that matter. See where the red arrow points, the string bends because it collides with the flank of the archer, and thus the bow cannot be drawn full length and the missile lose momentum.

6. Even though the bow is not quite fully drawn, the arrows are too long for this woman’s shortish arms. You can’t even see the tip of the arrow in this photo, so they’re definitely too long for her. The bow and arrows haven’t been measured for this actress personally. Minor error, but still.


Good:

The recurve bow and the arrows themselves look realistic and actually working weapons and not as fantastical as everything else in this movie, some swords with forked tips for example, terrible!