Smooth shading artifacts I'm new to blender and having issues with smooth shading artifatcs in the mesh that I'm building. 

I'm trying to model a spotlight and no matter what I do I get these stange surface shading effects and I'm just about to give up now. I have searched many articles online and couldn't find a solution to this.

I tried turning on Auto Smooth and it seems to work and wondering if this is the only workaround for this. 

already tried edge loops (not for this test model) and sub surf modifier.I get slightly better results but I can still see the shading problems.
This may resolve your shading issues, but it is no substitute for good clean topology.

I would suggest avoiding N-Gon's (polygons with more than 4 vertices) if you can.



You need more vertices to keep your topology as quads.



The poster above has linked to a good post that displays good topology.