Unfortunately my ellipse guide only has one degree of ellipse (of various sizes), so I wasn't able to dramatically vary the angles of the tires/wheels. Also, I wasn't sure how much shading we were supposed to do while practicing textures on the wheels, and I might have gotten carried away on a few of them.
While the issue with the ellipse guide is less of a concern for this challenge, I do want to advise you that the reason your ellipse guide only has one degree of ellipse is because it's one sheet intended to be part of a larger set, and not the type of single ellipse template we recommend students get. What we recommend is a "master ellipse template", which includes multiple sizes (although these can be quite limited), as well as multiple degrees. This is explained briefly in the assignment section, and in more detail in this video from Lesson 0. I strongly recommend you getting a proper master ellipse template, as you will need a variety of degrees for some of the techniques we employ in Lesson 7.
Starting with the structural aspect of the challenge, you're doing decently overall, though there are a couple points I want to draw to your attention.
Firstly as shown here when defining the side planes of your spokes, you tend not to consider the inner tube of the wheel against which they intersect. You have them continue along to the upper edge of that tube (where the outward face of the spokes, the ones you're not filling in with solid black, connect) but given that the side planes provide the spokes with thickness, they would connect with the inner tube further down.
Secondly - and this is an issue I only noticed this pretty early on so you probably caught it yourself - but in wheels 4 and 5, the profile of the wheel collapses inwards as shown here. I don't believe this was intentional, but just in case it was for whatever reason, having the midsection of the wheel/tire be larger helps to create the impression that the tire itself is inflated, and that the form would land with a bounce rather than a heavy thunk.
Thirdly, and this is something we'll discuss more in the next section of this critique, you tended to fill in the side planes of your structures with solid black (so like the side planes of the spokes I referenced in the first point). This is more akin to form shading, which as explained here in Lesson 2 is not something we generally incorporate into our work for this course.
Continuing onto the textural aspect of the challenge, this is generally set up as a bit of a trap for students. Given that we're far enough removed from Lesson 2, it's very common for students to let those concepts fall through the cracks, despite the encouragement to include all of the exercise we've covered as part of our warmup routine in some form - perhaps not in their entirety, but to ensure concepts don't just get left abandoned. But it does happen, and it happens a lot, so by raising a concern here that does require the use of those textural concepts, either students will realize this while working through the homework and review that material, or they'll not notice, attempt to employ explicit markmaking to convey their textures, and then have that pointed out in their critique.
In your case, neither of these appear to be the case. It seems that based on your submission comment as well as the work itself, you were aware of the fact that texture very much is relevant to the exercise, but you seem to have relied on what you felt you recalled from that material rather than going back and reviewing what the material actually said. A big element that exposes this is the point about form shading, which as I linked in the previous section of the critique, is specifically something we avoid when discussing texture.
While ultimately this isn't a big deal, going beyond the reminder for students to consider whether they've allowed other things fall through the cracks, you will definitely want to consider how it is you approach situations where you're unsure of how concepts should be applied. Trying to get through by relying only on what you remember may be a lot less time consuming in the short term, but it will hurt you in the long run.
I'll leave you to review the textural concepts from Lesson 2 yourself, but as this is something of an intentional trap for students, I will still be marking this challenge as complete. While you should certainly take the time to review that section in full, this section of reminders would be a good start.
Next Steps:
Move onto Lesson 7 once you have reviewed anything that may have fallen through the cracks.
A lot of my students use these. The last time I used them was when I was in high school, and at the time I felt that they dried out pretty quickly, though I may have simply been mishandling them. As with all pens, make sure you're capping them when they're not in use, and try not to apply too much pressure. You really only need to be touching the page, not mashing your pen into it.
In terms of line weight, the sizes are pretty weird. 08 corresponds to 0.5mm, which is what I recommend for the drawabox lessons, whereas 05 corresponds to 0.45mm, which is pretty close and can also be used.
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