Basic setup for photographing glass?

This is my first foray into this sub-forum. I'm a longtime enthusiast but have never gotten very far into studio lighting yet.

Among other things, I make and sell my glass art on the web for a living. Currently, my listing shots are certainly not the worst of the lot, but there is certainly room for improvement. Time perhaps to invest in some gear and step up my "studio" game...

When I'm lucky I can get away with a very simple overhead setup.

150 watt bulb & aluminum reflector from hardware store w/ white paper backdrop

Unfortunately, the glass pieces vary quite a bit. I find I have to take different approaches with pieces that are transparent, translucent and opaque. The surface texture also greatly affects what I can use in terms of lighting - the perfectly smooth, reflective surfaces seem to be the biggest pain in the neck.

My current favorite way to shoot my glass is outdoors on a sunny day. (Hard to beat that sun!) For sales listings I try to get as many lighting scenarios as the work permits. Here's back-lit:



hand-modeled, back-lit by sun

Direct lit - love the sun stars I got with this shot:

Side-lit: (got to work quick when the light patches are this narrow...)



I'm looking to recreate these types of scenarios, indoors. For those pesky smooth, shiny pieces, I'm looking for something very intense, yet small in diameter. Here's an example of my 75 watt flood bulb doing a decent job but I'd like to cut down on those reflections. (Some indoor sun stars would be a major bonus!)

I was looking at strobe units. That could certainly help with certain aspects. Did I mention I'm trying to do all this, hand-held? I have a lot of pieces to shoot from a lot of different angles - IMO a tripod would slow me down quite a bit. Seems like a moderately powerful strobe could permit greater depth & lower ISO without concerns over hand shake.

But then I stumbled across some focusable Fresnel incandescent lights by Arri & Lowel. Immediately, that struck me as the solution I've been looking for. Seems much more malleable, with the focusability & provision for barn doors & snoots. Nice narrow source. 250-300 watts with focused intensity should provide at least a couple stops more exposure latitude over my current setup. Not as much as the strobes perhaps but I like the flexibility & simplicity of this approach.

While I'm at it, I'll probably invest in a diffuser and a reflector & hopefully some sort of gooseneck with clamps to hold that where I want it.

So, studio veterans... what are your thoughts? Thanks in advance for your help and for reading this far.