Media Tests

I have tried out a media test on my kettle to make it futuristic. The problem is that I cannot photo manipulate and I have been working at it for the past 2 hours. And it still looks awful. I am that used to Illustrator that I haven't been on Photoshop for quite some time and just suddenly realised. I'm putting up this picture as a reminder to learn how to properly and professionally photo manipulate. I have done some in the past with college but this is the worst one I have done. I will look up new techniques, tutorials, books, everything to learn how to do this technique. I have tried looking at YouTube tutorials but none fit my criteria.

Abomination of a kettle 

At the start I wanted to design a see through kettle, so that the user can see the water boiling. But I couldn't find the right tutorial to do this. After looking for tutorials for quite some time I decided to create a neon glow or a touch pad kettle, with the temperature showing on a little diagram on front. That idea somehow turned into this and I am not pleased at all. I gave up after doing it for the past 2 hour because it was just going no where.

I think for the next test I'm going to create a sphere, glass looking ball on Photoshop. I don't want to give up on this and if I am designing a product I will need to try and use Photoshop correctly.