phandom: Ok. Now after seeing the last 2 pictures I'm ashamed of my pictures.
No need for that, your gun is excellent, and I'm grateful you revived the thread. (I should have said so at the time!) Plus, I recognize that those arms on the front of the gun are tricky to do well, and they seem correct to me.
Exoanthrope: Nice! I always like your crosshatching. I struggle with it, which might be why I like painting more. Are your drawings here usually pen or pencil?
I think all my drawings for this thread have been crappy 10-cent ball-point pen. That's why there are little thick blotches along some lines. (Probably more noticeable to me!) The bit I find tricksy about crosshatching is that it often looks wrong while I'm doing it. That is, til I've completed hatching a region, it can look like a new element rather than shading or coloring. I just have to trust (hope) that it's going to look right when I've finished scratching. This is especially true when the line weight of the hatching is similar to the outlines underneath.
I'm lazy about it, too! Really, I should be using the hatching to emphasize form. That is, if I'm drawing a leg, the hatch lines should curve to follow the shape of the flesh (as if they are edges of cross-sections through the leg). I just blunder 'em out at 45 degrees or whatever because I'm impatient and my hand happens to be oriented that way.
Anyway, I mostly do it to force myself to be rigid about my intent (for the sake of practice). When I start smudging, or shading using another method, my pics grow less distinct and wind up "this-is-how-it-turned-out" rather than "this-is-what-I'd-intended". If that makes any sense.
Also, I'm not professional. And happily, I think I can deflect your top quality comment towards chocolate girl, awalterj, or even yourself. And like you've said, I enjoy all the pics here. There have been lots of seemingly-simple colorful images that have made me surprisingly happy.