Learn How to Draw an Elven Bow Digitally!

This tutorial will focus on the digital painting methods to draw an elven bow as a fantasy world wouldn't be complete without archery bows a race of elves would use!

Used by hunter class and stealthy characters, the bow is a cool weapon of choice used to diversify your fantasy world.

Like all the weapons we have drawn so far, the techniques and tools are similar. That is, it is all done with very basic tools and a lot of imagination!

You would be surprised at the types of bows you can create with just a few curved gesture lines.

So get out your digital art tools and let's learn how to draw an elven bow on your computer!

1. Draw an elven bow with simple designs

On a separate layer, the first thing you want to do is create a simple gesture sketch in your digital art program.

As you think about how the bow will look, always keep in mind to make it curved. You can create any type of bow whether it is symmetrical or asymmetrical.

I encourage you to think of unique forms for your bow drawing rather than having a simple shape as I want you to look at many possible shapes to keep things different.

Once you are satisfied with a few examples, it's time to make it symmetrical in the next step.

2. Draw an elven bow that is symmetrical

You will need to duplicate your bow layer here. From the options available in your software, we are going to flip the duplicated bow layer.

Depending on your original orientation of your gesture sketch, you have the choice of flipping the layer horizontally or vertically.

Of course, move the flipped layer into place and merge the layers together to get a symmetrical object.

Now, preserve the transparency of the layer and work on the little details using a small brush. This option will allow you to paint within the bow object shape without going out of its boundaries.

Again, you can start drawing in details that feels right for you. Do not worry about it being symmetrical as we are going to repeat the same flip trick when you are done your details.

3. Draw an elven bow with symmetrical details

Once you have a good sense of the pattern and details of the bow, duplicate it once more and flip it.

Change the duplicated layer's blend mode from 'normal' to 'lighten' to reveal the other half the bow design underneath.

Then, move the layers into position and merge it together once more. You should have a perfectly symmetrical bow drawing with the designs in place.

Now is the time to eyeball your entire compositions. Are the designs correct? Does it fit in the overall feel that I am trying to achieve? What can I change?

Go ahead and refine any of the outlines and redo the flip trick until you are comfortable with what you have.

4. Draw an elven bow realistically

With the designs finalized, the last step is to bring out the textures and depth from the patterns. The best way to do this is to repaint some of the light and shadow elements very loosely.

There are several methods depending on your digital art software. The first method is creating a clipping mask. That is, you create a new layer and then set the opacity to 50%.

A clipping mask acts like preserving the transparency of the original layer except that all it is a separate layer on top of the original bow drawing that is confined to the object's boundaries.

From there, you would glaze on light and shadow elements onto it without fear of painting over your details as you can always adjust the clipping mask to your liking without damaging the bow drawing underneath.

If your art software does not have this option, simply duplicate the layer once more. From there, preserve the new layer's transparency and do your shadows and lighting here.

Then, change the layer blend mode/transparency option to show the bow drawing underneath.

There are a lot of options available so play around with what you are comfortable with. In the end, you should have a very convincing fantasy bow that you should be proud of showing off!

I hope you enjoy this lesson on how to draw an elven bow. I look forward to your progress in the gallery section of this site!

Didn't find what you were looking for? Use this search feature to find it.

I hope you liked (tweeted, and +1 too) this site as much as I liked building it!

Tweet