0016: Surprised with my inverted reflection in a bowl

So, today I got really surprised when I noticed in a kitchen bowl, how my own reflection would appear mirrored down up to the middle point of the bowl and from the middle point to the bottom, I would appear mirrored without distortion.

My wife was laughing at me and even took a photo. Inspired by the photo, I told her that I would try to mimic the effect in Blender.

I modeled the kitchen, the table, and the bowl using their real-life measures. Using my basic knowledge of Blender’s shaders and lighting I managed to replicate the effect. The problem is that the final render looks terrible. No matter what I tried, I didn’t manage to remove the fireflies/noise. Also, I don’t understand why the wall rendered… pink? So I tried to stylize the final picture.

I have so much to learn. Shading, lighting, rendering… those things are so hard. For the past 10 years, I focused solely on modeling, UV, texturing, rigging, and animating. I never touched the other subjects.

The process pics and the “almost realistic” render: