Cow Skull Crosshatch Shading

This is my first crosshatch. The cow skull was part of a class still life. This was done with a set of graphite pencils.

I had too much trouble with all of the bones inside the nose cavity so I decided to shade in the whole area one value.
I was also concerned that the skull would look like it was floating, so I tried to add the platform that was holding the skull up.

It's not bad for a first try, but I'm not too happy with this and may move it to scraps after I get more submissions posted.