Hi, I'll be handling your box challenge critique.

I'll quickly address your questions before getting started.

1) Straight lines is all down to confidence, if you're drawing confidently they should be straight. That being said they may not be accurate but that's a different issue, confidence is our first priority because our accuracy improves with mileage. Ghosting is definitely helpful and should be used to plan your lines beforehand to the best of your abilities, remember that when working with boxes you want to be planning your lines with the rest of your box in mind and not just that individual line.

2) If your lines are converging towards a vanishing point then the rear faces of the box should be smaller than the faces closer to the viewer, this is part of why diverging lines leads to so much distortion.

3) There is indeed an increase in curved line usage in lesson 2, while we don't expect perfection (you're learning after all) we just expect your best attempts. I took a peak at your lesson 1 submission and while your ellipses have room for improvement by no means are they unusable or lower quality than I would expect. If you're hitting your body drawing curved lines/ellipses you may want to look into how you're sitting and the way you're drawing, you should be able to draw them confidently using your shoulder like any other line. When you've been cleared on your boxes (I haven't looked at all of them as I write this section) you'll be free to move on to lesson 2 at that point you just need to try your best and put in your best effort. The worst case scenario of you handing in poor quality work is just us pointing out what needs to be worked on and how to improve it, revisions aren't a punishment and being told what you're doing wrong saves you time instead of leaving you to wander around clueless.

With that out of the way let's get started.

Congratulations on completing the challenge, you're definitely correct in the fact that it can test someone's patience and willpower as well but you made it through to the other side, be proud of that.

Your line work has definitely improved through the challenge, this is not only noticeable in the boxes themselves but also your hatching appears tidier, more confident and doesn't overshoot their stopping point as frequently.

I'm glad you experimented with different orientations, proportions and rates of foreshortening through the challenge, this experimentation will help deepen your understanding of the concepts being taught and make sure you don't end up in the "I can only draw this one box well" category.

In terms of convergences you're definitely more consistent, you may still have the occasional diverging line but overall your boxes are looking much less distorted and more solid solid overall. I will point you quickly to this example, it shows how each line in a set relates to one another and their respective vanishing point. Unless the box is long the inner pair will remain fairly similar while the outer pair can vary quite a bit depending on how close the vanishing point is to the box. This foreshortening is important to keep in mind and you did a good job experimenting with it, just remember that you want the entire set to converge consistently not just each pair of lines.

Overall this was a solid submission, you may have room for improvement but you put in your best effort and became more consistent because of it and you'll continue to do so.

Keep practicing previous exercises as warm ups, and good luck in lesson 2!