Looks alright to me so far. As for the subject of modeling and smoothing behavior, I always point newbies to guerillacg.org. They have the best way of explaining it.

Also don't be afraid to try HDRI as a background setting if you don't mind a bit of extra render time. Carrara has some included, although the filepath to those is a bit cryptic (I can never remember offhand), not to mention there's likely a couple you can download off the internet for free if you don't mind googling. Still the bi-gradient is always the best for showing reflections when you need it fast.

Now if you want to learn a bit about shaders and lighting in Carrara, you might also want to check out this fruit bowl tutorial. It's a multi-part video, so it takes a while to watch - but it's worth it!

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Barbequed Pixels?

Your friendly neighborhood Wings3D nut.
Also feel free to browse my freebies at ShareCG.
There might be something worth downloading.