Shaders

So I've decided on a bit of a break from the modelling and unwrapping part of the project and decided i should probably start actually learning some shaders. This project will be a good learning curve i think because i am defiantly not the greatest at this, mainly due to not putting in enough effort to research and actually learn them. To start off i begun looking at how some of my team mates from our journeyman module last year did it.
The journeyman module was a big part of my second year in university. It was a 5 month long group project, during this time we had to create 3 game levels. The group i was in was GrindHouse. We created a small game called Hotel Holmes based on the american serial killer. We were lucky enough to have our game presented at Euro Gamer 2013.

Before i start looking at various tutorials i am going back over what i know as a refresher, just as a rejig as to what nodes do what etc.
I've started with my jar that I've made, this has a quick block colour diffuse with an alpha map attached in.
I might make a proper one tomorrow, I've noticed I've started putting base textures on stuff to see how its looking. I think am starting to panic a bit because I've not started the textures even though i'I've planned to do them after Christmas. I don't know if its going to be wise to get a majority of my assets textured to give myself a better piece of mind or stick with my original plan of having everything modeled before starting on the textures. When i was doing the journey man module id create and texture the assets before handing them off to go into engine so am not too sure if that's sticking in the back of my mind?

Okay so i started by trying to replicate a few materials made for similar objects within the Journeyman asset pack. Its defiantly starting to jog a few memories. I want to try and figure it out for myself before looking into a few tutorials. This way i think it will stick in my mind more. Doing things this way has brought the mesh to my attention, I've modeled the inside part of the glass and i cant quite grasp if it looks right, i think am going to have to look at the tutorials to get this right before o decide to rejig the model.