Ranger on hooves

 

The man who drew this could use some reference for both horses and archers. The horses legs are just too big. Also the head is a little too wide. But anyway, this is a horse archer, not very often featured in this blog, because everybody just loves to draw female elves on trees, or ranger looking male archers crouching in shadows under their hoods.

Well, this man has a hood too, naturally. He's just a ranger on a horse. Mistakes regarding archer are:

1. Sideways shooting. Again, there is no point in this. Some people claim it is useful while hunting in thick bushes. But this character is on horseback, so what's the excuse?

2. Mediterranean draw with only two fingers instead of the usual three. The position of the hand is strange, since it is not tilted, while the bow is.

3. A huge back quiver. It is good to have a lot of arrow, but horse archers always had a hip quiver. East Asian horse archers too had a hip quiver, it was just different than in western Eurasia. They took the arrows under their armpit, not over the shoulders, like fantasy archers always do.

4. Why is he leaning so much forwards while shooting to the side? It has no purpose and doesn't make sense.

The bow, while being tiny, is not impossible. Horse bows were sometimes very small, which made them easier to operate on horseback. Small stature of the bow necessitated them being made in the recurve method, so that they were powerful enough. This bow could be more recurved, but it is passable.

There's a hood, but no robin

Another one of those mysterious hooded archer characters. These are getting pretty boring. This has some mistakes too. I didn't bother with numbers in the picture this time, but you'll get it anyway.

Mistakes:

1. Sideways shooting is always unnecessary. There is no reason why the character in the drawing should shoot like this. Hold your bow upright, or a little canted, but not sideways like this. This is obviously done to look cool, but it just looks stupid to everybody who knows even a little bit about archery.

2. The grip seems to be always hard to draw without reference. That's why people should use reference photos when drawing archery, or anything really. The right hand should grip the string but it doesn't. It seems to only be grabbing the arrow, which goes strangely through the string, or that's how it looks. This is impossible.

3. The fletching of the arrow is horrendous. This is not even an orc character, so please draw proper feathers there.

4. The man is not using his back muscles to draw the bow, which can be seen from the fact that the drawing arm's elbow is pointing too much to the side, when it should be pointing more towards the back.

5. Spare arrows or a quiver do not exist.
 

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.

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.

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?

Camouelfage?

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

Mistakes:

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

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

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

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

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

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

7. No quiver or other arrows anywhere.

8. The bow is held sideways.

Not such a smooth criminal at all.

How can only the ponytail fly so high?

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

Mistakes:

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

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

3. This elbow is way too high.

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

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

Left handers sideways shooting club

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

Mistakes:

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

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

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

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

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

Chaotic forest woman

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

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

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

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

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

Mini arrows cannot be shot like this

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

Mistakes:

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

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

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

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

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

This was bad, this was definitely bad.

Chinese archer girl (drawing) who has no idea how to hold a bow

The face of this character is obviously copied from either a photograph or another drawing (which in itself has most probably used a photo reference). The bow is certainly not copied from a life source. That is a bad thing. This is very bad. I mean very, very bad!

Mistakes:

1. This bow is horribly shaped, it does resemble a random tree branch more than a bow, an object a professional bowyer has spent days and weeks shaping into desired form.
2. Bowhand is nowhere near the middle of the bow. This is just ridiculously bad.
3. Three arrows, which are far away from the hand, impossible to shoot like this.
4. Bowstring goes over the bowhand, this is about the worst mistake you can make. You CANNOT shoot like this!
5. Very strange reverse grip of the bowstring.
6. Too big fletching and too near the end of the arrows. The stringhand shouldn't touch the fletching.
7. Where is the quiver or the rest of the arrows? If you have only three arrows, don't shoot them all at once!

A perfectly good picture of a face is ruined by the truly substandard work on everything related to archery in this drawing. How hard it would have been to just Google some pictures of real archers and use them as reference? The face is made with reference anyway. Oh, this is a Chinese drawing, maybe they don't have access to Google? Such a shame. But I still think there would be archer pictures in Baidu, aren't there?

Terrible Hobbit dwarf cosplayers

Two more Kili's this time!
Both are cosplayers who try to be the archer dwarf from The Hobbit movie trilogy, both are obviously girls, and neither of them can shoot with a bow and arrow.

First I'd like to address something relating to cosplay. Why is it so that all the Kili cosplayers I've seen on the Internet have been female, trying to be the male dwarf, glueing or painting some stubble on their chins? That does not look remotely real or believable. Everyone notices right away that they are not men. Male and female physique is quite different and the smaller jaw usually exposes the female gender easily, if nothing else (like the obviously female haircut in the B picture, or the makeup). And if the human inside the character speaks, the play is over.

Cosplay is one of my hobbies too, as well as costume and prop making. I just can't understand why it's premarily a female hobby, at least in Finland where I live. Most of the people in conventions who have dressed in costumes are women. Men tend to be more interested in gaming (traditional and video). Another question is, even though there wouldn't be enough men willing to cosplay some male characters, do women really have to cosplay them? There are plenty of female characters out there to cosplay, even if we rule out all the sexist and stupid 80 percent of them!
And then there's genderbending, even though I'm not the greatest fan of it, but if you really must play as a character of the opposite gender, can't you adjust the costume to your own? Just with a little bit of imagination you can make the role yours. Women can make female versions of male characters, be just as happy cosplaying them (if not happier, since it requires less tied breasts and glued stubble on face), and look cool and inspiring instead of obviously fake and ridiculous.


But now to the mistakes in these girls' archery, if it could even be called that.

A

1. Sideways shooting. One of the worst mistakes you can make. Enough said of it already in the previous posts.
2. What is this bow supposed to be made of? Looks like plastic and cardboard to me, but it might imitate wood and bronze. Anyway, if it would be bronze, it would be too heavy, cumbersome and unbendable to actualy work well.
3. The arrow is on the wrong side of the bow. This is the most common mistake seen in this blog's examples of crap archery. How she think the arrow keeps there? She has to literally hold it between her fingers, unless it would drop to the ground! Did the thought not cross her mind to maybe put the arrow on the other side of the bow? No? Okay, terrible. You just failed your basic archery course.
4. Four finger grip around the string. Not necessary and quite amateurish.
5. These little arrows and the dashed line show the two points where the bowstring bends. Because she's shooting stupidly sideways, the position of the drawing hand is unnatural and results in the bending of the string. It is true that you can bend the string sideways like this to give the arrow and extra spin in direction or another, but that is super high skill level precision archery stuff, not for the novices in these pictures.
6. The larger opaque white arrows show the direction of her arms. And they are not anywhere near where they should be. The biggest problem is again the sideways shooting, which results in a very poor shooting form, and the arms are just all around the place.
7. This arrowhead is not sharp. What are you trying to do, knock someone out? Or hunt squirrels without damaging their fur? I doubt that. It's also too big and heavy for this arrow (if the tip would be made of metal. I bet this foam tipped "arrow" flies as good as a foam tipped "arrow" can, which is probably below ten meters).
8. This mock of an arrow doesn't have proper fletching, what a surprise! Two feathers in terrible condition instead of three good ones. Nice job there.

B

1.  I just ended up lining this whole figure, since everything about this form and holding of the bow tells me that this person has never hold a proper bow in her life, let alone shoot with it. It's like she's holding a delicate crystal goblet full of red wine, in a pure white silk dress, walking on killer high heels on a slippery wet marble floor. That's not the way to hold a bow and arrow. That should be like a lumberjack and his trustworthy double-bitted felling axe, not just with brute force, but with firm hand and expert's preciseness, every hit of the axe splitting a log in two perfectly balanced halves, never hitting a rock or his own leg.
2. Maybe she wasn't holding the bow properly because it's not a proper bow! Or then not. Anyway, the bow is a toy. With a bow this thin you can create enough energy to maybe get an arrow stuck in a dartboard, if the arrow is sharp enough. With a real war bow you (well, not you, but a professional ancient or medieval archer) would hit right through the wall behind the dartboard and nail a guy hiding behind it.
3. Arrow. On. The. Wrong. Side. Of. The. Bow. Again, she has to use her thumb to keep it there.
4. These transparent big white arrows show the position of her arms. They are again a mess (and covered in obvious plastic foam!), and even though she hasn't made the full draw yet, I bet my head that her arms aren't aligned when she does that. A novice just don't get it right without proper instructor.
5. The cock feather (red one in here) should point towards the face of the archer, not outwards. That's because the two other fletches (which are opposite to each other) then pass the arc of the bow without touching it and thus damaging the fletches.

That's for today. I have nothing good to say about these "archery" pictures.

Turok, worst of archers

Turok, son of stone is a native American comic/animation/videogame character who uses his bow to battle dinosaurs. Sounds awesome right? This panel from a comic (or a frame from animation?) tells another story. Turok must be both mentally and physically handicapped, since he cannot even hold a bow right. Everything is so wrong in this picture I don't know where to start!

But let's begin, with the mistakes:

1. He's depicted left handed here, when he's really not. A common mistake.
2. The lines from both hands and from the arrow should be parallel. Now they are not anywhere near where they should be. This form wastes the drawing energy of the arm and makes the shot less powerful. It's also more tiring for the archer.
3. The bowstring should, shall and will never ever go OVER the bow arm!!! How is this so hard to get right?!? Stop drawing it like this, it's completely impossible to shoot like that! And don't you see how ridiculously stupid it looks.
4. The former mistake would not happen ever if people would also stop drawing people shooting sideways. It's not cool! It's stupid, it makes the shot less powerful since the archer cannot draw the bow with full force, because the bowstring contacts with the archers body. Nobody shot like that ever.
5. The arrow should be placed as near the middle of the bowstring as possible. It's not anywhere near the middle in this picture. The white arrow shows the correct place.
6. How much this arrow head would weight? It would not fly anywhere with that stone on it's head. Better use that as a mace or something. Arrowheads were small, like the size of the tip of your finger, not your whole fist.
7. That bow does not bend! Bows do bend! They are made of wood! Even when they are made of metal (very very rarely) they bend. If they don't bend and only the bowstring stretches, that's not a bow, it's a slingshot. And not nearly as powerful than a bow. For Manitou's sake, how is this so hard to understand?!?
8. This hand is not holding the arrow or the bowstring. Given the line of the string, the hand is in completely wrong position. It just wouldn't work.
9. The arrow should be positioned near the hand holding the bow, not far away. That makes aiming more difficult in this picture.
10. Arrows weren't held in a back quiver since they are hard and slow to get from there. Quivers were worn hanging from a waist belt.
11. Turok here not only has a back quiver, but it's on the wrong shoulder if he's shooting left handed, which he is now. How he's supposed to get the arrows from behind his head?

Good? Hahahahaha, not!
If the word "comic" is meant to mean laughably bad, then the maker of this picture has succeeded, otherwise he should change his career. I heard that the streets could use some more people to wipe them clean.

Anorectic arthritis elf

This generic fantasy elf female, who has a body of a standardized anorectic mannequin, eyes as blank and face as emotionless as her plastic equivalent, is also shooting wrong. The maker of this picture is to blame of course, since he hasn't used any reference at all.


Mistakes:

1. Left handedness. As told many times before, not a mistakes if intended, but here, certainly not.
2. Sideways shooting. The string touches the flank of the archer thus making inefficient shot.
3. Ridiculous bow. Not as ridiculous as some else, but still a stupid design. What are those glowing green things? And what for as these spikes? Did the maker of this picture intend that this bow could be used as a melee weapon too? Well, that's a bad idea, which can break the bow.
4. Back quiver. Enough said of this already.
5. In the same circle, another mistake, not room on the shaft of the arrows for fingers to grasp behind the fletching. Also fletching could be longer.
6. Very bad posture and stance. Does she have an arthritis on her knees or what? Is this supposed to be a sexy pose? Of course it is, but it fails to be anything else than ridiculous. What's with the length of the legs too? One could argue that this is an elf, but these same boys draw those giraffe legs on human women also. Anyway, a good shot would require much steadier stance.

War of the arrows (Korean movie)

This is from a Korean movie I just watched with my friends. It's called "War of the arrows", or then "Arrow, the ultimate weapon", of which the first one is much better as a name, but I don't know which one is more accurate translation of Choi-jong-byeong-gi Hwal (Google translate didn't help at all).

As a movie, it's pretty good, but as an archery film, superb! Never before have I seen so much, so good and so interesting archery in a movie! This is almost like Lars Andersen coming to the big screen!

And which is also great, is that the archers are now in the main role, which rarely happens in movies. Usually it's always the swordsman who gets all the glory, while archers are just extras shooting some shower of arrows at the beginning of a battle. In reality archers were much more important than that, they continued to shoot enemies throughout the battle, and not with arrow rains, but with direct shots.

I will start with the good parts, since there are many of those in this movie:

1. Mongolian release. I have not seen very many Asian archery movies (many kung-fu movies have archers in them), so the usual one to be seen in films set in Europe is the Mediterranean release. There is probably not the single best way to draw the bow, I happen to like Mediterranean more, since it is easier and don't require excessive equipment. Mongolian release needs a thumb ring, otherwise the archers thumb will become sore very quickly. Anyway, Mongolian release is done right in almost all scenes of this movie.
2. The arrow is on the right side of the bow. It's both right and right, since it's right to keep the arrow on the right side (and not left) of the bow, while shooting in Asian style. Asian people's all seem to keep arrow on the right and use their thumb to keep it in place there. It allows faster re-shooting, as Andersen demonstrated. Europeans keep the arrow on the left side of the bow.
3. Asian side quiver. They used their arrows "on the back" yes, but not over the shoulder, where the arrows are hard to draw from. Instead their quivers were designed to keep the arrows only from their tip area, but still firmly in place, so they could be tilted to almost horizontal way.
4. Keeping an arrow in the bow hand. Usually in movies people only carry arrows in their quivers, but in this scene the main character has one more arrow in his bow hand. It's faster to shoot from there. Even faster woud be from the string hand (Andersen again...)
5. Use of special arrows. This is called "half-pounder" in the movie, and it has a chisel like tip. Broad flat blades were used in arrow tips for different purposes. This is used like a "super arrow" in the movie, which I could criticize a bit, since it seems too powerful, shattering small tree trunks! But still, it's very nice to see some special arrows in films, since we always get only the regular ones, and 'fire arrows', which were more sparsely used than movies makes you think.
6. THIS ONE! Fantastic! The main hero shoots with broken arrows! He makes an arrow guide from a bamboo stalk, and uses it to shoot half arrows. The arrow guide is tied to his thumb, so it doesn't fly when he releases the arrow. Superb!

This movie cannot escape mistakes entirely:

1. The main character shoots sideways many times. You can clearly see where his arrow string touches his clothes. It's not very good form. He also shoots the bow vertically too.
2. In this picture the main antagonist has a poor form. He uses the Mediterranean release, but with four fingers. So it's wrong for a Mediterranean, and also wrong for an Asian. Most other times he uses the Mongolian grip properly. The arrow's fletching inside this same circle is also damaged to the point that there are almost none feathers left.
3. The arrow is on the right side of the antagonists bow, but he keeps it in place with both thumb and index finger. That will hurt the index finger, if released. I admit that it is harder to keep on the right side of the bow, just with a thumb. Maybe this picture is from the early stages of filming and the actor got better over filming time?
4. Back quivers. Most characters in this film have them. Almost all soldiers carry a bow anyway. But back quivers were not used like this, not in Asia either. The protagonist has a better one.

Summa summarum:

This is a very good archery movie, and I recommend it to everyone even remotely interested in archery, history, warfare or Asian cultures in general.

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.

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.

Atalanta (from Hercules, 2014)

This is from 2014 movie Hercules starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, the only ex-wrestler who has successfully turned into an actor. Many have tried, but failed miserably, since they have no skills in acting whatsoever. Anyway, in this movie, based on a comic book series: "Hercules, the Thracian Wars" (Thracia was a neighbouring country of Greece in the antiquity) features Atalanta, a Greek heroine (originally Atalante in Greek) who was a virgin huntress famous for her running speed (faster than any man), under the favour of Artemis (also a virgin huntress, and a goddess).

This movie version has dressed Atalanta with a skimpy leather outfit, which imitates armour, but because of the material, and of course the fact that it doesn't cover her belly, it is a useless piece of sexualised cliché fantasy female costume.

Mistakes, concerning about archery:

1. They made the bow also a mêlée weapon with attached blades on both of its ears. That makes the nocks different than usual, with long slits where the string loops go, since if the string would loop around the nocks like usual, the blades would cut through it. The thing I'm complaining about is the whole use of the bow as a mêlée weapon, instead of just shooting arrows with it. The bow can brake! It's not designed for that. It can take even years, but more probably weeks to make a proper recurve bow, so no one in their right mind would want to brake it by hitting enemies with it. Instead making a spear takes a day or so and making replacement shaft for it is super easy. Why don't Atalanta has a backup weapon (I admit a spear is difficult to carry, so someone must choose either a bow or a spear), but a sword or even a dagger would be fine, with a small shield accompanying it. Don't hit with a bow!
2. Atalanta, since she's a heroic character, shoots two arrows at once, several times in this movie. They made it her "trademark" of sorts, as well as the bladed bow. Shooting two arrows at once is in fact possible, but it doesn't do anything else than waste two arrows in place of one. And there isn't infinite amount of arrows. In one movie scene Atalanta shoots two arrows at two different objects, which is impossible, since the arrows would just fly to the same target. It's also not possible to aim at two places at the same time.
3. In this picture her arm is quite low, maybe she's tired or something. But it really should go straight back and continue the parallel line of the arrow.
4. Beginners grip of the string with all four fingers. The mediterranean grip which she should be using only involves three fingers, index finger above the arrow nock, and the two next below it. If using four fingers the string turns around to the right too much which might effect the flight of the missile.
5. Quiver on back. Arrows are hard(ish) and slow(ish) to get from there. A hip quiver would be more practical. They also wouldn't fall off quite so easily while running and jumping, which she certainly is doing a lot in this movie.
6. Shooting sideways. Always a mistake. Repeatedly done in movies. The bow can only be drawn to the point where the string contacts the archers flank. There could be some 10 to 20 cm:s more drawing space if the bow would be held vertically.

Good:

The actress' archery form is not so bad, only the four finger string grip (which is a minor mistake), and the lower elbow position in one scene are her errors. For the others are moviemakers to blame. Also which is good, is the use of spare quivers on chariots. There were regularly many quivers on a chariot carrying archers around a battlefield, since otherwise they would've ran out of arrows pretty quickly. Although Greeks didn't use chariot archers (in Homeric times they used chariots to bring noble fighters to the battlefield, and carry them out when they were tired of battling), but this is a fantasy/legendary movie, so they can have it.

Brave (complementary material)

While the Pixar animation Brave was itself properly researched and the archery was done mainly right in it, the same cannot be said from the official merchandise and other complementary material. I combined two pictures in this post, since I don't want to bother you with this crap many days in a row.

Mistakes:

A–picture is some awful little girly *SHINY* sticker ad, and the product includes 'horsies' and other glittering stuff those of us having two X-chromosomes, but not yet 10 years of age are supposed to like. Yuck!

1. The form of the string grip is awful too. It doesn't represent any of the several known grips which have been used historically around the World. This is just a fist around the string and arrow nock going somewhere. And look at the size of those tiny hands, they are almost smaller than her eyes (which are very big, a manga influence which rids popular culture these days)!
2. The bowstring goes OVER her bow arm!!! What in the actual ƒµ¢Í<?!? The maker of this picture has absolutely zero idea how to draw an archer, he or she has not used any reference at all. This is just the kind of ignorant shiny glittering *horsiepoop* which I absolutely hate! "I know how to draw everything, so I don't have to use reference, I just draw it out of my head." If you are too lazy to make a five second Google search before starting to draw (this is of course made with a computer, so the maker cannot excuse that it would take too much time to open the computer), you can as well change your career, from an "artist" to something which requires no use of brain cells, like a telemarketer, doorbell ringing Jehova's witness or a night club DJ.
3. There are other errors, like that the arrow doesn't rest on the bow gripping fist, so she has little control over where the arrow fill fly...
4. ...or the fact that the bow is held horizontally, which is very awkward and useless position...
5. ...and the nock of the arrow is nowhere near the archers face, where it should be...
6. ...or that she doesn't even look where she's aiming while she has already drawn the bow! But it would be frustratingly useless to correct those, as long as the whole form of the archer in this picture is so fundamentally wrong in every possible way. I remain wondering if Merida's dull facial expression in this picture is intentionally telling us: "I have absolutely no clue what I am doing, but I just keep this stupid smile on my face".

B–image on the other hand... I can't decide is it worse or on the same bottom pit as the picture A.
You couldn't get to a lower level in any other way than combining these two pictures. This is so poorly made unlucky attempt at depicting the character and the bow that I cannot continue without pausing to take a deep breath. I understand if many critics have drinking problems.

1. The bow in this picture does not bend. How hard it is to understand the difference between a bow and a slingshot? The former has a rigid string attached to a bending arc, and the latter has a stretching string fastened to a rigid frame. I'm sick of these rubber band bows, which would make better weapons if you'd throw the whole shebang at your enemy, instead of trying to shoot with it. I've drawn a proper curvature for the bow in blue.
2. The maker of this picture (I refuse to call these inferior cheap freelance draughtsmen artists) has succeeded in including two mistakes inside this circle. The archers hand is not gripping the string and arrow properly, the fingers just sort of lay there. Again, could've used some reference there, but no, too lazy to do that.
3. The other one is obvious too, the fletching of the arrow is way too back, since it interferes with the grip and the bowstring. This is actually the worst case of 'wayback fletching' I've seen so far, so, have ironic congrats for that, you the maker of this picture! Merida is holding the arrow from the middle of the fletching. This is so wrong it hurts!
4. The arrow is surprisingly on the left side of the bow as it should, but this is merely a coincidence, since the maker have had no idea of proper archery techniques at all. However the arrow tip weights half a kilogram since it's a solid iron tetrahedron of the size of half the fist. And it is not even located straight ahead of the arrow shaft, it's a little bit off the point.
5. Where on Earth is she looking at? Her head is completely sideways so she can't see at all the target where she's shooting at! Apparently the maker of this picture just had to include the 'pretty female face' in this ad in order to generate more clicks, but it just makes this picture look even more amateurish and downright stupid.
6. The line of sight and line of the arrow point in completely different directions. She would have no chance of hitting that large target which is three meters away, even if the line of the arrow would point anywhere near the target, which it doesn't do.

Good, but still not good:

Usually I would consider the use of hip quiver as a good point in a picture, but in these cases it is on the responsibility of Pixar's character designers, and the praise goes to them. Certainly the makers of these pictures would have drawn Merida with a back quiver, if they could've.

It's such a shame how the makers of these pictures have completely ruined everything which was good about the Character of Merida. She really knew how to shoot quite well in the movie, but in these pictures she is lowered to the level of millions of wrongly drawn archresses with ridiculously childish mistakes.