In this recipe, we will create a glassy polystyrene plastic material; the type you can find on the body of ballpoint pens:
Getting ready
Start Blender and load the usual file 1301OS_04_start.blend.
Select the Suzanne mesh and press T. In the Object Tools panel on the left select Flat from the Shading option, press T again to get rid of the Object Tools panel.
Go to the Object Modifiers window in the Properties panel and delete the Subdivision Surface modifier. Add a Solidify modifier and set Thickness to 0.0350. Add a Bevel modifier and set Width to 0.0025.
How to do it...
Now we are going to create the material:
Go to the Material window and click on New (or do it, as usual, in the Node Editor header). Rename the material Plastic_clear_polystyrene.
Set Viewport Shading of the Camera view to Rendered.
Switch the Diffuse shader with a Mix Shader node and in the first Shader slot select a Mix Shader node again, in the second Shader slot select a Glass BSDF node; set its IOR value to 1.460 and the Color value to R 0.688, G 0.758, and B 0.758.
Go to the second Mix Shader node and in its first Shader slot select a Transparent BSDF, in the second a Glossy BSDF; set the Glossy node's Color to R 0.688, G 0.758, and B 0.758, and Roughness to 0.010.
Add a Fresnel node (press Shift + A and go to Input | Fresnel) and connect it to the Fac input sockets of both the Mix Shader nodes; set the IOR value to 1.460 as well.