Hawkes or Handsaws

I’m sure this will come as no surprise to anyone, but I love the character Kate Bishop.

(Also, anyone who is not yet reading Matt Fraction’s run of Hawkeye comics should check it out.)

It’s been a little while since I’ve last drawn archers. This needed to be remedied!

(thanks to Sycca’s Stock and Kxhara for photo reference - much easier this way)

It’s new sketchbook time. Which, of course, means that I have once again defaced the front of the book. This time, in colour!

Day Three of 30 Days of Drawing: an example of what you draw the most. I draw a lot of archers. Which is, honestly, something I hadn’t realised was quite so prevalent in my repertoire until I started flipping through my sketchbooks.

In honour of Brave coming out tomorrow, have a drawing of Merida! Okay, so I do realise that at twenty-three I should not be this excited about a children’s film. But — but — it just looks like it will be so lovely! Good animation, archery, and pseudo Scottish folklore. What’s not to be excited about?

Also, I always wanted hair like that. Just sayin’.

Thinking of the Battle of Agincourt (which we all were, I promise), I decided it might be time to point out why it was quite so awesome. In a word? Archers. Yes, indeed, archers.

Bulfinch’s Age of Chivalry and Legends of Charlemagne puts forth the idea that Agincourt was actually the end of the age of chivalry for that very reason. He argued that the use of archers against knights was against the very concept of chivalric warfare, since a trained knight with honour could ostensibly only strike against another knight. Using ranged weapons wielded by common soldiers against an enemy who would not expect such an attack was simply unsporting.

And, exceedingly effective.

Whether you agree with Bulfinch’s idea that it was playing dirty or not (honestly, much though I enjoy his writings, it’s not a concept to which I subscribe), it is still exceedingly impressive. The French outnumbered the British something like six to one, and roughly eighty percent of the British forces at the battle were archers (as opposed to the French forces, where over twenty-five percent were mounted knights). The fact that the British won is simply staggering.

There are an endless number of essays detailing the tactics of that battle, so I won’t bother to go into it here, but the fact remains that it was a fascinating battle.

Anyone who wants to read a really impressive account of it ought to track down a copy of Bernard Cornwell’s novel Agincourt. It’s an amazing book.

I seriously have pages and pages worth of archery studies in my sketchbooks. And, they’re still not all that I might want them to be. TIME TO DRAW MORE.

As an added post, have some quick figure study sketches.

This impressive lady is basically all of my childhood ambitions come true. Really.

Go check out http://virginiahankins.com/ - she is a lady knight, and she is brilliant.

Just a quick peek at one of my current pieces. I haven’t done an oil painting in about two years. As in, not since the contemporary painting methods class I took senior year. On a whim, I decided to drag the oil paints back out for the Daine drawing I’d posted recently. I’m still on the underpainting, but so far I’m rather pleased with it.

So, here - have a quick picture taken with my laptop’s camera. Sorry for the crappy picture quality. More to come soon!