Plug

Lovely modelling, the transparency on the model works well the shadow on the plane is all wrong - this isn't your fault this is a problem with the render software - although it does look like your cables are transparent too... If you were use a light dome over this and eliminate the main light you might get away from the transparent shadow error however you'd need to increase the absorbtion of the plastic material in all likelyhood to avoid the shadow adding up in a negitive sense and being lighter in parts than the environment - another quirk of the renderer. I think you should persue this possibility as you are already there with the model, all you need is the light sorting to make this "hyper-real" - that is better than real, real would be battered and scratched, this would be perfect, but totally believeable - except for it's perfection - obviously - hyper-real. Needless to say adding a light dome is going to push up the render time horrendusly, but it will be worth it if you get it right. It will.

Cheating Of a sort. the cable are cylenders (one of the words I can never spell) extruded many times along an axis (in this case, the X axis). Then, I take the cylenders and cable sheathing into "Tweak Mode" and use magnets to deform the cables and sheath to bend. Very difficult operation to get the cable to move but not strech- an hour of work. This is all done in wings. This model was an effort to break away from my habit of modeling everything from one cube and not using any other objects. It seems to work!

The wires in the cable strike me as the most fantastic accomplishment here and I wonder how you did them. The plug with the vulcanised cable exit is beautifully real, too. It would have been a shame if you rendered it with DOF. Such excellent work must be shown crystal clear. Top marks.

Fantastic Excelent modeling, looks so real to me. Dont know how to rate it, dont know if 1 is best or 5. But I rate it best