Hi everyone, NUSesnsei here. Archery is a beautiful art, and speaking of art check
out this channel.
StuffbySunshine is in Melbourne-based children's book
illustrator and an up and coming YouTube channel. She creates bright and
attractive watercolor paintings, weaves amazing stories and anecdotes and runs
workshops for schools. We have a very exciting and unique collaboration coming
up on her channel. Subscribe to StuffbySunshine to be the first to see it
and the rest of her amazing work.
Now, I mention archery and art together because
as you know, archery is a very popular subject in art, both historical and in
modern depictions. Especially today with so many references to pop culture, people
are fascinated and interested in drawing archers and bows in action and given
that as artists you might have a lot of insecurities about your work, you don't
really need more people jumping onto you for getting things wrong. So this video
is here to provide some insight to the accuracy of drawing archery with a bit
more technical accuracy. Whether you are a traditional painter, a digital artist, a
3d modeler, even a photographer, you may find some of these tips to be quite
relevant to your field and hopefully helpful in your artistic pursuits. I want
to start this with a quick preface: this is by no means a comprehensive list of
rules that you have to follow when you're illustrating archery. There is
plenty of room for creativity and you should explore different avenues to
illustrate the art of archery. This is more for people who are a bit more
curious about why things are done and perhaps impress a few more people with
your technical know-how. We're going to begin by talking about the bow itself
and this is in relation to the shape of the bow and the design of the bow.
Perhaps the simplest kind of bow to illustrate is the longbow. If you
imagine yourself as a young kid drawing a stick figure and you drew a bow that
was basically like a D shape, that's basically what a longbow is. Longbows
are really simple both in real life design and illustration, so this is very
much a valid bow to draw. Like I said, all this is, is basically a stick in a D shape
with the string and that's a longbow. This particular bow is a Victorian era
English longbow but it's the kind of bow which is commonly depicted in fantasy
sources. So, if you have, say, a forest ranger, they are most likely to be using
a bow like this. Taking a closer look you can see the bow has a very simple
shape and design. All it is is a bit of a curve. You might have a bit of fancy grip
and traditionally bows didn't have grips but again being artistic and creative
you can have some kind of leather wrapping or grip here. And again with the
bottom end of the bow, more or less a simple curve. Quick tip here and this will be
relevant later on as well, do take note of where the string is placed on the
limbs. Some people think the string goes straight on the very end of the tip. In
actuality there is a notch cut into the end where the string is looped
around. In practice the string is actually not exactly on the tip. When you
do illustrate the bow string, you might only have a slight gap between the
end of the bow and where the string begins. If you want to get a little
fancier you might want to add a bit of curvature to the bow and you'll see this
quite often in fantasy designs where the bows have a bit of a reflex. If you
take this to the extreme you go from the longbow to the recurve bow. In this
case you can see the limbs are curved away from the archer hence recurve.
The recurve bow, especially this kind of bow shape and design, is perhaps the most
familiar with archers today. This is commonly seen in pop culture and the
most common bow type used by people today. This particular one is a
traditional bow but has a modern design, so it has things like a more ergonomic
shape grip and it's modular, so it is take down. You can take this apart for
storage and to swap things out. But more or less, this is a recurve bow which most
people today would easily recognize.
Getting a bit of a close-up for the bow shape, we have the very distinct
curvature of the limps. We have the central part of the bow or the riser.
Depending on the bow type, if we have a one-piece traditional bow this might be
very narrow design but the modern bows tend to be a bit chunkier, mostly for
weight, balance and grip. Going to the bottom limb, again we see that it narrows
or thins out to form the limb. Limbs are meant to be thin and light, so you
wouldn't really have the bulk of the bow on the limbs. You would have the
bulk in the middle of the bow, again depending on what design element you're
going for. If you want to go for something a little more exotic you have
the composite bows, also known as Asiatic bows or horse bows. This is more
commonly known in the Eastern cultures, so Persia, China, Mongolia, Korea and so on.
The defining feature of these bows is that they tend to be quite short. Not
always, but they have very distinct limb curvature, especially these pronounced
tips or ears which are known as siyahs. These siyahs are the defining feature
of the Eastern style bows. They are used differently to Western bows but you
often see these used in art to illustrate an exotic style of warrior,
again often inspired by oriental sources. That's what it looks like. Close
up of the design features of an Eastern style bow. You have the very pronounced
siyahs which are mostly wooden. Sometimes they are made from horn.You have
sometimes a string bridge. Not always. Some designs have no bridge. It simply
contacts the edge of the limb here but some designs do have a bridge.
Again, a bit of a design choice for you. Often these bows have very fancy
wrappings and designs and again these are very short bows. You can have longer
ones but these are mostly designed to be shot from horseback and tend to be very light
and portable. So if you're creating a character that's meant to be
very mobile then this sort of thing might be
more appealing. Like I said, this is the exotic option for most character
designs. Many archers are more familiar with the traditional bows or the longbows
and recurves, whereas Asiatic bows tend to be more foreign and different to
most readers and viewers. In terms of decorating your bows in your designs,
like I said there's plenty of room for decoration. You can have engravings or
markings. You can have wrappings. There's a lot you can get away with. Of course, a
functional bow doesn't need all this but to make it fancier there's plenty of
options to make it brighter more colorful and more unique. If there's any
mistake that's common in bow design which makes things look a little
ridiculous, it would be the addition of too many things especially on the limb
tips. The reason is the limb tips are meant to be light because this is the part which
springs back and propels the arrow forward. So by pulling the string back
you have a lot of curvature. If you have too many things on the limbs, for example
like metal spikes or things sticking out, then it does actually slow down the limb
which hampers performance. That would probably never be done in a real bow. If
you want to include fancier metal decorative elements, make it closer to
the handle or the grip. That way it has less effect on the bow itself. The limbs
should be as light as possible. Again, not a really big deal but it makes more
technical sense to minimize weight on the limb tips. The other thing you should
be really mindful of is which way the bow is braced and this is especially
true for photography. As a matter of practicality and safety we don't
normally keep our bow strung so we normally keep them unstrung. That way,
it's basically disassembled. That's what it looks like when unstrung and
very often when people go to photo shoots or do cosplays, they don't have
the bow strung and they don't know how to string the bow and the result is the
model doing something like this. This is one of the biggest annoyances which
people have who have been doing archery. I'm looking at the
camera right now. I'm kind of like getting a little sick inside because
this is so common and actually really bad for the bow. That is really not what
it looks like. People think it does look like this because the limbs are curving
towards the archer but they are actually meant to be curving away. So when people
do this, we all cry a little inside. Please don't do this. Sometimes people
don't know. Fair enough. But if you're doing it like this, then you're doing it
horribly wrong, to the point where you might actually damage the bow if you
have it strung and pulling it back this way. Bows aren't meant to bend like that
so just be careful. You might ruin somebody's bow. Again this is what
it's meant to look like when fully braced and drawn correctly. Something else I
want to briefly mention which is also quite important and a common mistake is
how to draw the string. Look you don't have to be fancy with the string.
If I draw a straight line, that's your string. That's completely fine. The
misconception that many people have is that the string is an elastic band, so as
you pull it it stretches and gets longer. That's definitely not how a bowstring
works. I have seen examples of artwork where the character is holding the bow and the
string is like three times as long when they're pulling it back.
These aren't slingshots. The string doesn't stretch more than it has to. The
way the bow works is that the string pulls the limbs back, and this is
something else watch out for. The shape of the bow isn't static. What it looks
like when you're holding it like this without pulling it back. It's different to
when you do pull it back. Take note of how the limbs curve backwards or move
backwards and move forward as I let it go. I'm going to have to kneel to
get in frame but just imagine this. So I have the bow here. Watch the
limb tips. Full draw, moves back quite substantially and then back to original
brace. Again: full draw and to brace. So that's how the bow works. The limbs bend
back and snap forward to propel the arrow. You don't really see the
string changing a length. It's more or less the same length but the curvature
does change. And this effect is much more obvious with a shorter bow. So again, I
have to crouch down a bit here. Pay attention to limb tips. We get the full
draw and see how much it curves when you pull it back and back to the original
position and curved. It's one the reasons why these bows tend to be very
popular for illustrating exotic styles because the extreme curvature is
something that's visually very appealing. The next common mistake is how to hold
the string. Not gong to lie. This is perhaps the part where most people get wrong in
illustrating archery. There are actually many different ways to hold the string
but we'll go through the most common ones. And just quickly, as an artist I
know that drawing hands is everyone's least favorite part. If you're drawing
mittens, fair enough. But getting the fingers right is an art in itself, so I'll
try to provide as many references as possible. The most common and
recognizable way of holding the string is what's called the Mediterranean grip.
Basically you have three fingers on the string in a hook shape. That's basically
it. So once more as a quick reference. Most people would put the string on the
first joint of their fingers to form a hook like this and they'll place it on
the string like that. From the other side - again, three fingers, first joint
around there, hook it around and that's the correct
grip. With the arrow as a reference point: most people will have one finger over
the arrow and two fingers under the arrow. This is by far the most common way to
shoot using this grip. So again, that's the grip from the back and the grip with
the front of the hand.
Drawing the bow back
and a bit of a front view.
On a similar note another important point in archery
is the anchor point. People who shoot with aimed shots and shoot accurately will
use a physical contact point on the face to draw the bow back to. In this case, I'm
using my cheek or the corner of my mouth. This is very common in archery in real
life. You draw it back and you have a touch on your jaw or your cheek or your
eye somewhere near there so that you have a consistent reference point.
I mention this because quite a few people will illustrate archers with very
long floating anchors, especially 3d modeling where we can't quite get the alignment
right so you often see people draw archers like this, that draw it back down
here or something. Again, if you're creating a hero
character they can automatically hit everything, fair enough. But really if
you're going for a skilled trained archer they're probably going to shoot
like this rather than out here. Now again going with the exotic options, if you are
depicting and oriental inspired archer, they would be using what we call thumb
draw, where you use the thumb to draw the string back. Again this is not commonly
known in many Western cultures or in pop culture but it is a very common way of
shooting with a bow. Unlike the Mediterranean draw, which has three
fingers on the string, the thumb draw has one finger: the thumb. And the way it
looks from this side is you have the thumb hooked around the string and you
usually have the index finger locked over the fingernail like this. That's
kind what it looks like quite simply and with a proper grip that's what it looks
like. It kind of looks like a fist from this angle.
So by doing a thumb draw: loop thumb
around, finger on, and then you can pull it back all the way here.
And from the other side: thumb hooked around, finger over
and you have this kind of grip. Much
more easy with a thumb ring or a glove. I'm not using one right now but that's what
it looks like: pull it back like that. Something worth mentioning
if you do illustrate archers after the shot then pay attention to the position
of the hand especially comparing a Mediterranean release versus a thumb
draw. The last common mistake that we'll cover is which side of the bow the
arrow goes on and this is quite controversial not because there's a
right and wrong but people think there is a right and wrong. This is actually
quite easy to address. If you're shooting with the Mediterranean draw with the fingers
and you're right-handed, the arrow goes on the left side of the bow. If you're
shooting Eastern style with the thumb draw then the arrow goes on the right
side of the bow. And again I point this out because many Westerners find this to be
wrong and the opposite to what they're used to so don't take this as a criticism
from people with don't know. This is the correct way to depict an Asian archer
using a thumb draw. For some reason people take these sides as absolute. Look
if you're left-handed you flip these around. Thumb draw with left hand means
the arrow's on the left side and if you shoot with your fingers then it goes on
the right side. Now those were the most common ways to illustrate shooting
methods. There are a couple of uncommon unorthodox methods as well. One of them
is a two finger draw which you often see in artwork. This is definitely viable. It
is a variation of the Mediterranean draw. Less common in real life but it is done
and it definitely works. The other unorthodox method which you do sometimes
see is an inverse grip, especially with two fingers. This can work, it can be done
in real life but it's a little unusual. It's more an artistic flair than anything
else and you don't find many people doing this. That's basically all I want
to cover. That should cover most of the technical inaccuracies which might
bother some people. Like I said, there is plenty of room for creativity. There are
a lot of things you can get away with but if you want to have that extra
element of technical accuracy then hopefully this will help. If you have any
further questions feel free to post in the comments below
or send me an email. If you'd like to send some draft artwork for me to do
critique then I'll be happy to look at it and if there's anything I missed that
you think might be quite important to include feel free to add in the comments
below. Anyway, this is NUSensei. I hope you found this interesting and helpful.
Thank you for watching and I'll see you next time.