Hello,
Here's my submission for the 25 Wheel Challenge,
It was really intresting to do and I learned a lot from it,
I had a hard time with some of them (especially the inner thin bars inside bicycle wheels..)
Thanks in advance for taking a look into my work :)
Congrats on completing the 25 Wheel challenge! I'll do my best to give you useful feedback so that you can improve!
Starting with the structural aspect of the challenge, you've made excellent use of your ellipse guide to create a gentle arc for the wheel's profile, making it appear more inflated, as though it would land with a bounce rather than a heavy solid thunk. You're aslo taking good care with the spokes of your rims in most cases, defining not just the outward face but also the side planes, to help make them feel more solid. For the wheels 1, 20, 25, and 12, you did end up using lines for the spokes - I wouldn't recommend this, as lines don't have any dimension. Try to at least use 2 lines to define the spokes.
For the textural aspect you've also done a great job here as well. There are some wheels which you do end up using form shading and explicit mark making but for the most part you use the principles of implict mark making well. Lets take a look at wheel 8 where you do end up using explicit markmaking, effectively constructing those protruding tire tread "chunks" in order to establish how they sit in space. You certainly do then go on to incorporate filled areas of solid black, but the opportunity to merely imply those textural forms has already passed once those forms have already been drawn.
I'll take the words of uncomfortable to explain texture in case they help increase the understanding of what you're already doing well. You may already understand most of this from what I can see from wheels 4 and 19 but there's also 12, 22 to 25 where you do end up using explicit mark making
The reason that explicit markmaking is not always an effective tool for every task is that it locks us into a very dense amount of visual detail. This can be fine if we're looking at wheels floating in the void, but when we use them as part of a larger vehicle, they become focal points, drawing the viewer's eye to them whether we want them to or not. This severely limits our ability to guide the viewer's eyes through a piece.
Conversely, implicit markmaking allows us to alter how we convey the texture (in terms of how densely we pack in that information) without changing the nature of the texture itself, which we can see here on this example of bush viper scales.
Another point to consider however is that this can be pretty easily detected with very chunky textures, but when we're dealing with much shallower grooves, the distinction between doing it correctly and incorrectly can be pretty slight. Hell, the actual visual result can be the exact same, but the manner we think about it can make the difference.
In effect, when dealing with tires with shallow grooves - or any texture with holes in it - students can be prone to viewing the groove itself as being the "textural form" in question. So, they focus on drawing it, filling in the groove with black and moving on. But of course, the groove isn't a form - it's an absence of form. Instead, the forms in question are the walls along the sides of the groove, casting shadows upon one another, and upon the floor of the groove itself. This diagram demonstrates this concept visually, to make it somewhat easier to understand.
Lastly, I wanted to give you a couple additional diagrams - more focused on how we think through the texture analysis exercise in Lesson 2 - but still applicable here since it's all about understanding how to approach identifying our forms without drawing them, so we can imply them with cast shadows alone.
Firstly, this diagram (or alternatively this one which is essentially the same, just framed a little differently in case it makes more sense) demonstrates how texture requires us to think about the relationship between the light source and each individual form.
And secondly, this diagram shows, using a texture of melted wax, how we can think about first identifying the forms themselves, and then designing the shadows they'll cast.
Anyway! As I mentioned, the "trap" aspect of this challenge is very much by design - so I'll still be marking this challenge as complete. Just be sure to review the texture material, especially these notes.
Next Steps:
Lesson 7
Like the Staedtlers, these also come in a set of multiple weights - the ones we use are F. One useful thing in these sets however (if you can't find the pens individually) is that some of the sets come with a brush pen (the B size). These can be helpful in filling out big black areas.
Still, I'd recommend buying these in person if you can, at a proper art supply store. They'll generally let you buy them individually, and also test them out beforehand to weed out any duds.
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