Modelling - Day 9

Next, I am going to focus on the mirror frame, again this is another object that I am unsure about modelling. I have an image of a frame that I am going to attempt to replicate, i'm thinking something similar to this:

I like the style and again it is an opportunity to test my skills. I initially thought about creating a polygon plane with a high amount of sub divisions and moving the vertexes but it didn't really seem to be working for me. 

I have created a few objects using the EP Curve tool and seeing as this object is very curvy, I thought that this may be the best option, although I wasn't entirely sure how to do it. I projected my reference onto an image plane and began tracing the mirror frame with the curve tool, this took quite a long time and initially, I had traced half of the mirror but had stopped at stages which seemed to produce issues so I realised I would have to trace the intricate object with one line. 

So I traced the whole mirror and then I wasn't really sure what to do.. I realised I wouldn't be able to fill the gaps however I decided to carry on and see what the result would be. I wanted the curve to be a polygon so that I could manipulate it and I wasn't sure how. 

I discovered that you can turn curves into polygons by converting them to paint effects first, I'm not really sure why but it worked. I then made the frame thicker and this is what it looked like. 

I then placed it in my scene and textured it, then attached it to the mirror plan. This is the final result of which I am quite pleased with seeing as I improvised.