Hey, here's my submission for the 25 wheel challenge.
I tried several ways to work around the issues of being so limited by my ellipse master template.
The inability to make an ellipse that's the same degree but just slightly smaller than another made drawing these this frustrating.
Still, I tried the best I could.
Also, I now hate tires. Just in case this was your goal all along, it's a massive success.
Nice work! I've run into a lot of students just skipping the ellipse guide altogether, so it's always nice to see a submission with ellipses that aren't... all over the place.
So! Overall your constructions are looking pretty solid and well done, but there are a few things I'm going to draw your attention to.
First and foremost, your wheel/tire constructions tend to basically be a pretty even cylinder all the way through, something you could capture with one ellipse on both ends. Most wheels/tires, due to being inflated, will actually be a touch more complex than that. Notice how I place a somewhat larger ellipse in the center here to help it balloon out towards the middle. Alternatively you could place larger ellipses out somewhere between the center and the sides. Now, you may have been somewhat restricted by your ellipse guide, or you may simply have missed this step. Reviewing the instructions now and then just to make sure you haven't forgotten something between your first and last wheel is always a good idea.
The second thing I want to point out are the few cases where you end up with something that comes off as being paper-thin. Wheel 15, and wheel 25 both have edges that should have thickness to them (achieved by dropping in a slightly offset ellipse), but without the additional ellipse end up feeling unnaturally thin. Definitely something to keep in mind. Conversely you did this more correctly with wheel 14.
The last point I wanted to address comes down to tire tread texture. In 5, you tackled one with really chunky texture to it, and you were off to the right foot. I am glad that you added the little explanation though - you are correct that just using the solid black ink to fill in the side plane of those chunky treads wasn't quite correct (I demonstrate this in this diagram - basically you determine what kinds of shadows those textural forms would cast, and you only draw the cast shadows and the outlines that actually break the silhouette of your form). Later on, you tackle some other chunky treads like 17, but you end up tackling a whole different route where you basically apply construction/explicit drawing techniques. When it comes to texture - even the big ones - leave your outlines aside (except where they actually break past the silhouette of the wheel itself). Rely only on cast shadows. This principle applies to all textures, even those that aren't so chunky, though it becomes more prominent when dealing with those with larger textural forms.
Actually, I lied - I have one more thing I want to mention, but it's related to the previous one. Filling shapes in with black should be reserved for cast shadow shapes and nothing else. For example, on wheel 10 you've got these triangles that you filled in with black, and in many of the wheels with very shallow grooves, you filled the grooves in. The reason we don't want to do this is because it actually accentuates only the "top" face of a given form. A groove for example is made up of a top face and side faces (along the inside of the groove), but if you fill the groove in all you're left with are the tops. Logically speaking, light can still catch some of those side faces, so if you just fall into the pattern of filling them in, you'd outright miss any opportunity to catch light playing off those side faces. Always draw your shadow shapes with an outline first, then fill it in. Using this two-step process will force you to think about what the shape of the shadow is, and how it relates to the form that is casting it.
So! Aside from those points, your wheels are largely coming along well, and you've generally demonstrated some great work when drawing the rims/hub caps/spokes of your wheels, as well as with the overall construction. Keep up the good work, and consider this challenge complete.
Next Steps:
Move onto lesson 7.
Thank you !
The first point you mentioned, I am fully aware of it, and I couldn't find a decent solution mostly because of the ellipse template. Each degree does have different sizes, but the size jump is so big that it would look absurd to use it to make the tire slightly bigger in the middle.
At some point, I tried, by dividing an ellipse in 1/4th and shifting the guide around to try to make an ellipse that looks bigger or smaller, and it worked a little bit, but it's not very convincing.
For the casts shadows, yeah, I horribly struggle with that, especially since all the cast shadows I see are soft edges.
And yep, for the thin ones, I noticed it too, but only after I was done with them.
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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