Before I get to your critique, there's something I wanted to address. Some of what you said in your submission comment suggests to me that you may not completely understand how the official critique program itself works, and that may result in you looking at the assignments themselves, and all that is asked, in an incorrect context.

To put it simply, the quantity of the assignment and the specific ways in which we direct students to perform the tasks (including taking their time and care with every mark and not deciding on their own to deviate from those instructions), while serving to help provide a broad range of students with effective training, also serve to ensure that we are able to provide the service in general. The service being the feedback you receive.

As explained in Lesson 0, where we outline the requirements for receiving official critique, we explain that these strict rules are there to ensure that we can do our work efficiently, so that the limited resources we operate on can ensure that every teaching assistant is paid fairly for their work, while simultaneously offering the service as cheaply as possible. As explained here as well as in the video at the top of that page, and here in the first page of that lesson, we charge students less than what we pay our teaching assistants for the corresponding feedback, and rely on those who allow some of their credits to expire to make up the difference.

Though we try to mention this when possible in the course material, many go under the impression that we operate as any other school would, in the sense of charging the student a set amount for the service they receive, taking some of that for profit, some of that for paying those who provide the service, and some for the overhead of transaction fees and so forth. It's understandable to an extent, because that's how most services work - but it's also why you don't generally get personalized feedback for anywhere near our prices.

This misunderstanding of how we operate can certainly result in some students feeling inclined to modify the process to better suit how they feel about the work - similarly to your choice not to prioritize your linework for the second half of the challenge. And in turn, that can make the process of providing feedback more complicated and time consuming - demanding more of our limited resources. Each lesson and challenge is designed to limit the kind of issues and mistakes that may need to be discussed, and to allow the focus of the feedback to be on certain things. For example, when it comes to this challenge, which gives us the opportunity to discuss considerations relating to design not covered in the course itself (as a sort of spring board to what they can explore next), having clean linework helps to ensure that I can see the student's intent, and more accurately interpret what they were thinking about, and what they may not have been thinking about, when making their design decisions.

Furthermore, with the optional challenges - this one especially, which does not exist within the general flow of the course but rather as something one can opt to do after completing it - while the considerable volume of work ensures that I am spoiled for choice in terms of which specific design concerns I want to discuss and how many examples I can have to point at, it also serves to give the student to earn their feedback of what is again, an entirely optional exercise.

To put it simply, the less the student is concerned with following our instructions and more on following their own personal compass as they complete the work, the more it demands of us. And of course, we set things up so that we can should we choose to reject homework on that basis, but generally we don't if we can help it. We accept that these misunderstandings come not from a place of malice or entitlement, but from forgetting that our course is unique in what it offers, and how it does so, but I'd be lying if I said expressions of that misunderstanding did not constitute a bitter pill to swallow.

Anyway, getting to your critique, I've picked out a few of your designs to discuss in regards to how one might think about the objects themselves and the context in which they were produced to help inform what kinds of details you might add to further flesh them out. Detail is one of those areas where students often feel uncertain about, because they don't necessarily have a clear idea of how to choose which details to add, and why. This is fortunately something that can be explored in a more systematic fashion by finding questions for ourselves to ask about the objects themselves, the purpose they serve, the way their various components fit together, and the world in which they exist.

One thing I did quite like about many of your designs is that you tend to be mindful of the thickness of the individual components you include in your designs. So for example, if you add a metal plate or a bracket, it's generally not drawn as a single flat shape. You give them just a little bit of thickness on the side, which is something many students neglect. I also found your use of joinery techniques to be quite interesting.

Looking at this one first, I thought the hinge mechanism was very neat, but when asking myself questions about how it was put together, and how it might be maintained (for example, applying oil/lubrication to the hinge when it inevitably starts squeaking), we might consider... well, where does the hinge pin go? How does it actually get inserted into the mechanism in the first place? It's not a problem we have to solve in this design, but if we were looking for additional areas to add detail, adding an exposed hole on the side for the pin to enter, and for oil to be applied, would be an option.

Similarly, if we look at the way in which the sides of the box are secured, we could say that it simply uses an adhesive - as long as the civilization that produced this box is one that would reasonably have access to adhesives, and wouldn't be stuck using rivets and bolts for everything. Alternatively, a little ornate bracket could be used to secure two perpendicular sides together.

None of these things are mandatory, but as we think about these objects less as pretty things to draw, and more as objects that exist inside a world, things that were made and used, it unlocks all kinds of questions we can ask ourselves in order to identify what kind of details would suit the object.

Continuing on, here I noticed that you'd approached the wood grain texture of the slats that make up the box in a fairly random, haphazard fashion. This suggests to me that you weren't using your reference for this aspect. Whether that wood is meant to be rough with little bits sticking out all over, or if it's meant to be a smoother wood grain, adding details randomly will only ever make something look messy. Instead, be sure to pay attention to your reference in order to think about how you might go about simplifying it in order to convey the impression you're after. If there are little bits sticking out, like a real splinter hazard, then those sections would cast shadows - specific shadow shapes, as we discussed in the texture challenge. If it's more of a wood grain, then they tend to be made up of continuous, flowing lines - not short broken ones.

Another point I noticed here, is the missing hinges, leaving a question of how the lid actually opens and closes. Of course, again - you don't have to include them, as the viewer will assume that they're meant to be implied. But hinges are a fairly common element to something like this. I imagine your hinges could be secured to the opposite side of the box as well, although that approach is less common.

A minor point here in regards to the closed bench-style chest you've got beneath it, the keyhole looked somewhat out of place because the rest of it was so ornate, but the keyhole was left as a bare void. This seemed incongruent with the rest of the object, didn't really match the general level of ornamentation, so adding edging around it and securing it with rivets is one option of many.

Lastly, the barrel you drew for number 15 had some basic elements in play, but it definitely left a lot of questions. Firstly, the main body of the barrel, is it made up of a single continuous piece, or is it made up of many individual slats like traditional barrels? If it's a single continuous piece, that's another technological consideration - warping wood in such a fashion isn't easy, and one might consider whether the civilization producing it is capable of that sort of thing.

Of course, the barrel could be made of plastic, with industrial rubber bands or o-rings wrapping around it for... some purpose. Maybe to reduce impact if it falls over? But my assumption was that your intent was to draw a more standard barrel, in which case separating out the slats, adding rivets for each to secure the bands, and even adding some wood grain might not go amiss, as shown here.

I think you're making a lot of good headway with your designs, and most of what I've called out here are suggestions. With design there are many paths we can take, but ultimately what we want to achieve is a cohesive story. Whether it's limited to the object itself (where we would consider whether the whole object was approached similarly, with the keyhole example being one where some parts were fancier than others), or to the greater context in which the object was produced and used. Everything can tell a story about itself. Not everything needs to in every situation, but the more we think about what that story might be, the more tools we have at our disposal.

I'll go ahead and mark this challenge as complete.