Hello! Just as a heads up, imgur was giving me some issues uploading, so please let me know if everything made it there in one piece. Every wheel should have been labeled too. The majority were with an ellipse guide, but, just to see what would happen, I did the last three wheels (wheels 23-25) freehanded! It should be apparent which ones were done this way. As always, thank you for the feedback in advance!
Jumping right in with the structural aspect of the challenge, you've done a great job. I can see that you made good use of the various cross-sectional ellipses throughout the wheel structure to capture cases where the midsection widens (to help convey a sense that the tire is inflated, that it would land with a bounce rather than a heavy thud). You've also been quite thorough in building out the spokes/rims structures, considering not only the outward face of it but also the side planes, which helps make the whole structure appear more solid.
Continuing onto the textural aspect of the challenge, this is where things take a bit of a turn - but not in an unexpected fashion. Basically one of the major purposes this challenge serves is to provide students with a problem that aligns with the textural concepts we discussed back in Lesson 2 (having 3D structures aligned along another surface), but seeing how they would tackle it. It's very common for students to either apply the concepts from Lesson 2 partially, or even not at all, because a lot of them don't integrate those concepts and exercises into their warmup routines, leaving them somewhat abandoned and forgotten. By raising this here, we can remind students that there are a lot of things covered throughout this course, and that it is important to review them to ensure that you're not leaving anything behind - especially as we move towards the end of the course.
In this case, you don't appear to have really made much use of the implicit markmaking techniques we introduce in Lesson 2 (where we focus on implying the presence of those textural forms through the shadows they cast on their surroundings), and instead opted to stick to more explicit markmaking (like using standard construction to place each textural form in space).
When dealing with wheels floating in a void, that can be a functional approach - but when those wheels end up becoming a part of a larger vehicle or an entire illustration, the density of detail that results can create unintentional focal points which draw the viewer's eye to them whether you want it to or not. This is because explicit markmaking creates a very clear relationship between what you draw on the page, and what is conveyed to the viewer as being present. When working with explicit markmaking, if there are a ton of chunky blocks sticking out from that surface, we'd have to draw every single one. Anything that was left out would feel like a physical gap, where no structure exists.
Implicit markmaking doesn't establish this expectation, because none of the structures themselves are drawn directly. Instead, their presence is always implied through the shadows they'd cast on their surroundings. Shadows are flexible - as shown in this diagram, depending on how far the form is from the light source, the angle of the light rays will hit the object at shallower angles the farther away they are, resulting in the shadow itself being projected farther. This means that forms can still be present without marks being laid out for them specifically, helping us to control just how much contrast and detail we want to include in a small space, so we can continue to be in control of which parts of the drawing draw the viewer's eye.
When it comes to those tires with shallow grooves, or really any texture consisting of holes, cracks, etc. it's very common for us to view these named things (the grooves, the cracks, etc.) as being the textural forms in question - but of course they're not forms at all. They're empty, negative space, and it's the structures that surround these empty spaces that are the actual forms for us to consider when designing the shadows they'll cast. This is demonstrated in this diagram. This doesn't always actually result in a different result at the end of the day, but as these are all exercises, how we think about them and how we come to that result is just as important - if not moreso.
Anyway, I will still be marking this challenge as complete. It was not intended to be something to get stuck on, but rather an opportunity to illustrate the importance of considering whether there may be anything you may have left behind as you moved through the course, so you can review it ahead of moving onto Lesson 7.
As a whole, I have no worries about your ability to employ the constructional drawing aspect of our exercises, and looking at how well you've fleshed out these structures here, I'm a little excited to see what you'll pull off as you head into the final lesson. But always remember - this course is very dense, and it's easy for things to be forgotten along the way. To get you started, I'd recommend reviewing the texture section of Lesson 2, although start with this bit.
Next Steps:
Review the texture material, along with anything else you feel you may have left behind as you progressed through the course. Then move onto Lesson 7.
These are what I use when doing these exercises. They usually run somewhere in the middle of the price/quality range, and are often sold in sets of different line weights - remember that for the Drawabox lessons, we only really use the 0.5s, so try and find sets that sell only one size.
Alternatively, if at all possible, going to an art supply store and buying the pens in person is often better because they'll generally sell them individually and allow you to test them out before you buy (to weed out any duds).
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