here's something i'm finishing up and wanted some input from the community. good or bad input...it doesn't matter. just say something! lol!

oops...

I really like her facial expression.

I'm undecided about the pose though. It seems to me that her body is too straight and front facing.  I haven't used a bow and arrow for many years (I used to be quite good :P ), but it seems to me that the body should be turned at the waist  a little  towards the direction of the target and the head and arms not so severely  perpendicular to the body. 

It's the whole "centre of balance" thing.  To me the pose is ok if it's a "posed" shot, but if you are striving for an "action" shot, the body alignment for balance and shooting seems off.

a couple of things, but otherwise a cool pic. The arrow is on the wrong side of the bow, right hand shots have the arrow on the right hand side so that on release, the fletching doesn't tear off. the draw hand is too weak on the string, it would appear the fingers are at right angles to the arrow. For a smooth, fast shot, the fingers should be tensed at the end of the string with the whole hand almost at a trailing perpendicular to the arrow itself, so that on release, the string arm and the bow arm don't move in the follow through. good expression on the archer's face, very good shadowing.

heck, it's hard enough to draw a bow in real life (a semester of archery in college, almost 30 years ago..;) everything the above post says is true. Now if there was a way to morph a real Amazon (tried once, but the bodies in Poser aren't set up that way). Points for realistic bosum..;)

Hi mrpeabody!

Great lighting.

cheers!

patorak

Sorry, but what 1358 says is untrue. I shoot traditional longbow. The arrow is where it should be, fletches wont tear of because the arrow flexes around the bow on release. The bow in the picture looks to be a reasonably powerful beastie so holding the string on the tips of the fingers would be impossible, the string should be between the 1st and 2nd joints of all three fingers shown. However, the hand should be turned slightly to show this. Only other fault i can see in the pic is that the left shoulder is perhaps a tadge too high or the hand too low. The weight (pull) of the bow should be perpendicular to the bow arm for steadyness and the bow should be at 90 degrees to the ground. Great expression though.

Jack

 

Basicly I think it looks great, but that comment won't help you improve it, so what follows is mostly critical. I think that the helmet, bow, and arrow head, could benifit from a texture map, they look a bit like they are made out of plastic to me. The tip on the arrow head looks rather blunt and rounded, it would seem more threatining if it looked sharper. The fletching is the same colour as the arrow shaft, which seems unusual. Perhaps the bottom right lip could raise a very little bit, the bottom lip looks rather more symetric than I think is should considdering the pronounced sneer on the top lip. I can't decide about the highlights in the eyes, they are on diffrent sides on diffrent eyes. It seems to me that from the point of view of physics they would both be on the same side, but I can't actually say it looks bad, it may even look better than more naturalistic highlights, you decide.

Quote - I shoot traditional longbow.

You do? That's awesome!  I'm in my 40's and times have changed, but when I was a kid it wasn't uncommon, at least in my family to allow your kids to play around with weapons, LOL  My favourite "toy", and that's what it was to me,  was my bow and arrows that my father made me. I got my first set before I started Kindergarten.   We lived in a residential area just outside the city limits and my favourite thing to do was run around and shoot at trees, sides of buildings etc with my bow and arrows.  My brother's favourite was his boomerang which my Dad also made.  We were even allowed to shoot shotguns so long as my Dad was there with us.  I was too small for a 30-30 Winchester or a 22 calibre something or other, so I didn't shoot them often because I ended up getting bruised up which my Mom didn't exactly appreciate,  heh

We were taught to be responsible and told to never point them at people or creatures and we didn't.  It was great fun. I felt like Robin Hood,  lol

We moved into the city when I was 8 years old and I sure missed my bow and arrows :(   I've often considered taking up archery again over the years.  If my health improves I still might do that.

ihave to go with whoever said better texures for the hardware......i just looked and it was lesbentley.

the gaps between her fingers on the bow look wrong. when we grip something tight like a pole and our thunb rests on the fingers, it almost impossible to leave gaps as such. well maybe not impossible. other than that i like the simulated 3d effect. oops nearly forgot.....i can see she's a muscular madam but her back would make arnie proud. toned down just a little would accent the rest of her body much more. jmo.

billy

hey, thank you all for your replies!

i did do some research on this so i knew i had the arrow on the correct side (didn't want to blow something so obvious). the positioning of the body/arm/hands was kind of tough to get, plus it's an action shot (see attached pic of other angle) so what i did was split the difference between what it should look like and what looked visually attractive...great input on the shoulder/hands/arms though...will have to readdress those and see what i can do.

lesbently- whenever you see that i have asked for critiques, please "always" respond in the future. i appreciate the time you took to really dive in there, thanks. yes the textures. lol. i have absolutely no idea how to texture the helmet, tried many things. i ended up just giving a faint bump...still wasn't satisfied though. i'll see about the bow and arrow. the eyes. lol! i cheated and have 2 small spots to light each side of her face a little bit (no shadows) but you are seeing the highlight from the other spot, never would have caught what you did. good lip idea. i purposefully tried to maintain a unsymetrical look going on.

thank you all for responding! don't be afraid to say what you mean, my goal is to have a good scene not to have my feathers fluffed. i have a good idea of what i'm going for but am always interested in what others say, doesn't mean i'll do it...but like the input none-the-less.

ray

 

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, that's a better view, i can see what yu we going for now. As an action pose then it looks fine from an arrow slinging point of view.... except for the fingers of the string hand, they would have to be in the correct position to have a chance of drawing the bow (imagine the string is attached to a 50 or 60LB weight and you get the idea).

Acadia, get into it. I'm recovering from heart problems and hadn't shot for a few years up until recently (the staples holding my breastbone together were the problem... could have been messy if at full draw my chest had exploded) But archery is great for relaxation and aiding concentration, and you get to meet a bunch of nice people too.

Jack

sorry all, I guess after forty years of archery (including Japanese and Mongol styles) I was doing it wrong with the arrow where it should be.... my mistake, but at such an ancient age mayhaps I can be excused for my lapses..... many apologies.... just going out to burn the bows I have and then move onto crossbow (I'm kidding, I'm kidding, although I do have a crossbow and a slurbow). put the arrow where thee wants it, this is art and open to interpretation.

not bad! I dunno what those plants are in the background, but they need to be thickened up alot and sharpened IMVHO. if ya blurred 'em because they're scaled-up leaves that will look wrong unless they're blurred, then replace 'em with trees from something like xfrog, treepro or carrara, or whatever folks use to do realistic, properly-scaled trees.

1358, in eastern archery the arrow is shot from the right side of the fist, in western archery it tends to be shot from the left. So you weren't doing it wrong if you were practicing eastern archery.

Most eastern archery is also practised from horseback hence the need to have the arrow on the right side of the hand.

I've been a practising martial artist for 24 years, weapons both eastern and western for 16 of  those.

Sorry of topic but hey.

 

 

Well that explains a lot, apologies to 1358. All my experiance is with English long bow and modern target bows.

Jack

Couple of things...

• As has been said: The forearm, hand, and any parts of the fingers before the string should be completely in line with the force they are exerting. It takes a lot of muscle to bend a hand while supported something very heavy (I used to bowl a lot) - and in this case (different to bowling) there would be no advantage in doing so.

• Lighting: Very dramatic but, unfortunately, not very realistic. Even after all the blurring, the "forest" behind her is being lit from behind, somewhere from the top left corner. The young lady however is being lit, very strongly from right upper front, and the parts facing the forest light are in deep shadow.  Just doesn't fit in.
  I'm sure the you want to keep the light on our young heroine - so maybe you could darken the background. Also, as she seems to be in the middle of a forest then you could consider giving the light a shade of green.

Besides that - nice work!

Rô