Polished surfaces always see something too. (Fancy that!) If it's the hubcap of a car outside on a sunny day, the surface is going to see the landscape. (#1, 2 and 6 above) If it's the grill of an antique auto, it could very well see the back-side of the headlight bulb. (#5 above) If it's a brass fire hydrant on a brick wall, it's going to see the ground, bricks, surrounding buildings and even the sky. (#4 above) The sugar bowl in the silver service (image #3) above is reflected in the smooth side of the teapot.
Looking closely you can just make out the photographer as he aims the camera at this flashlight. On convex chrome shapes, what’s up becomes down, and here, is wrapped to the inside of the sphere. (Inverted spherize) In the hub caps above the image is right-side-up, spherized.	In the flashlight reflector, we see whatever it sees, which happens to be the photographer taking the picture. Yes, distorted, and up-side-down, but there none the less. ... In all of these cases the polished metal is seeing something and then displaying it to us in the form of a reflection. The reflection is almost always indistinguishable unless the surface is a smooth, regular shape. ... Severely shaped surfaces distort the reflections beyond recognition. (Like the fire hydrant, #4, above.) In the same respect, if the finish of the surface is not highly polished then there will probably be no reflection. (Like in the aluminum portions of the top, left photo #1.)
... The key to drawing or rendering a polished surface is being able to see what it should look like. If you don't have the actual object, then you need to do sufficient research so that you can guess what it should look like. The Trophy was 'drawn' in Illustrator not from an actual trophy, but several objects which had similar shapes. Magazines are great idea sources. Build reality, or build from reality. <-- Back