This poster was drawn by Adam Rambalais for Marvel as part of its promotion for the Hawkeye series.
It was also shared on the archery subreddit, where it was met with a lot of facepalms.
Archery in popular media has always come under scrutiny for its wildly
inaccurate portrayals. So what exactly is wrong with this picture?
Before I begin, please not that I’m not criticising the skill of the artist. I’m
sure no one’s going to go on a witch hunt over a few small technical mistakes, some of which isn’t
the fault of the artist. We can appreciate art, and we can learn something from it.
This also isn’t a critique of the show itself, as I haven’t seen it, though if there’s anything
worth mentioning, feel free to let me know in the comments. Now, let’s examine the poster.
I won’t comment on the overall layout and stylistic choices,
but it’s important to note that this is not an original drawing.
The three main elements of the poster are copied from different reference material.
Kate Bishop is taken from this poster, Clint Barton is taken from this scene from a trailer,
and Lucky the Dog might be from this poster, but that’s beside the point. We’ll examine Kate first.
There’s one very strange detail in Kate’s pose: her fingers. Her fingers are placed over the top
of the arrow, and there’s no universe – Marvel or otherwise – where this works as a grip.
This error is copied over from this promotional poster, in which Hailee Steinfield poses.
Curiously, her other poses show the correct grip between the fingers.
From an artistic perspective, it’s important to illustrate characters in dynamic poses,
but let’s talk about a few small archery details to help more accurately depict
these idle and ready stances and why this artistic choice makes no sense.
Normally, we wouldn’t walk around with an arrow nocked unless we need to, such as during a hunt.
When we do, we normally keep the arrow pinned on the bow with the index finger of the bow hand.
We can then use our other hand to grip the string, with the arrow between the
index and middle fingers, as is the most common method for the Mediterranean draw.
This opens a range of iconic archer poses, the archer standing tall,
alert and observant, ready to the bring the bow into action in a smooth motion,
the one that is the favourite to illustrate as the hero shot.
There are some artistic problems with this, as the normal method of shooting
obscures the face to the viewer or camera, which leads to some unorthodox compromises.
Notably, Katniss Everdeen in the Hunger Games film shoots with a lower, Olympic-style anchor
so that her face can be seen, and Clint’s pose in the same poster reflects this visual clarity.
But there doesn’t seem to be an artistic or practical reason why Kate would pose with her
fingers above the arrow. Under the arrow, maybe – this is also a common of way of shooting – but
there’s no rhyme or reason why anyone would hold the string above the arrow. It doesn’t help with
visual clarity or add any dynamism into the pose. Apart from that, Kate’s illustration looks fine.
Clint, on the other hand…where do we start.
First, what the hell is this?
You don’t have to be an archer to tell that something is wrong with the arrow
placement. I’m sure a few people will point out that THE MONGOLIANS SHOT LIKE THIS – yeah,
Clint isn’t using a Mongolian draw, so no. And well people can and do shoot with the arrow on
the outside with the finger-style of shooting, not only is it very unorthodox, Hawkeye doesn’t do it,
so it’s not canon and therefore is wrong. Clint is a left-handed archer, he is correctly seen
with a left-handed bow, but the arrow should be on right side – the same side as his face,
where this shelf is, which is designed specifically for that purpose.
There’s no place to put it on the other side, and he’ll end up shooting off his laser sight.
But is this the artist’s error or the source material?
I’ve tried looking at the original and I can’t conclusively say what’s going on here.
I suspect that this a CGI arrow. It’s normal for actors to shoot without arrows during filming
for safety reasons, so they pull light bows with empty strings and dry fire their bows,
and arrows are added in post-production. This seems evident in this shot because
there’s a mismatch between the lens focus on the arrow and the bow,
like the studio has put the arrow on top. If this was a physical arrow, it would be lying
across the shelf, but it’s angled too far up for the purpose of framing Clint’s face,
and very likely inserted on the wrong side. The artist simply copied what he sees.
The arrow on the poster is a weird one. The artist intentionally adds
a broadhead – I guess it looks kind of cooler and more recognisable as an arrow by viewers.
But that is a very weird arrow head. Normally, arrow points are screwed
into the shaft and can be swapped out. I don’t know what the reference was for this rounded tip.
The grip is very much a Hollywood mock draw. The tension is all in the fingers and only
really works for light draw weights, and the release is going to be an awful pluck,
compared to a flatter hand for with no tension. There is a small artist mistake here:
the artist places the pinky finger on the bow string, while the source material does show the
more correct three-finger grip with the pinky off the string. It’s a small detail that was missed.
And that’s the critique. But by now you might be wondering, what’s the point?
Why nitpick over small details? These are superheroes who can do whatever
they want – and that is true, who am I, an archery coach, to tell Hawkeye what to do?
Who cares about fictional people and how they hold a bow? Why get offended?
To that, I say: I don’t think it’s offensive. I just think it’s lazy.
When we’re supposed to believe that a character is a badass hero assassin ninja warrior,
their actions need to show that. But when someone who is supposedly an elite warrior
can’t hold a weapon properly, it ruins the suspense of disbelief.
So we’re supposed to believe that Kate Bishop is
the world’s greatest archer, but she can’t hold a bow.
As an aside, we’ve also seen this argument in a historical context where we supposedly
should take historical artwork as true and accurate depictions and ignore what we might see
as errors, because “everybody had a bow”. Yet in modern times,
artists and photographers have access to a near infinite amount of source material,
and they still make blatant errors that could be fact-checked in five minutes.
In the end, it’s just a poster, it’s a just a TV show, no big deal. If you’re an archer, this
probably isn’t anything new, but if you’re not, I hope you’ve learn a thing or two,
and if one day you find yourself taking a stock photo with a bow, you look better than this guy.