Ok, so I started this yesterday and I’m going for a photo-realistic look. Anybody have some ideas on what I can do to improve it?
The biggest things are too much spec on the wood, and usually pencils don’t have a dip between the ridges.
cant really critique on it becauseof the dof and bad angle
Sides should be flatter, not slightly concave as you made them.
I like the graphite tip.
The point of view and the very large angle means you expect a reduced depth of Field.
Wood should be lighter.
Ok, here’s an update. I changed the wood texture to be lighter and less shiny, fixed the indentation problem, updated the lighting, and made a few more minor changes.
@moffboffjoe: I added a view from the top without dof
@Gwenouille: Pardon my denseness, but do you mean more dof or less?
Start by adding an eraser… 
needs a better environment for it to be realistic
Like above said, add an eraser. The graphite tip reminds me more of a shiny, polished bullet than a piece of graphite. It should be a dull gleam, the point should be rounded, and you should add the zigzag of where the graphite and wood meets from when you sharpen it.
Also, there are usually lines through the exposed wood, as well as numbers/letters engraved in green on the pencil, like HB 2.
Very, very nice otherwise.
Looking nice so far!
These might help you:
http://www.g2microsystems.com/downloads/product_photos/g2_rs_chip_pencil.jpg
http://bettyjung.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/j0403730.jpg
I would of modeled the tip separately, but to each his own I suppose! 
When it comes to photorealistic rendering make sure your textures are as high resolution as you can possibly find… You might even benefit from collaging multiple textures into a single UV map.
Check out this site if you haven’t already: http://www.cgtextures.com/
Good luck
One more update before I go to bed. I added an eraser, fixed some of the materials, added lettering, and fixed the lighting. I haven’t gotten to the environment yet, but that’s next on my list.
btw @Nikolaus: Thanks a lot for those links. I’ve been looking for a big image of an eraser for a reference, but I couldn’t find one. Oh, and I did model the tip separately…
Another update. I added the paper and table and tweaked lighting and materials. Ready to focus on the details now. Like I said I’m going for photo realistic here, so feel free to rip it apart.
Render with ambient occlusion, it will look better.
Um, I am
This isn’t a work in progress anymore btw. I moved it to the “Finished Projects” section. Sorry, I probably should have posted something.
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=167407
I know you’re done, but there needs to be a shadow under the paper… it’s curvature suggests it’s not flat on the table, and strong shadows under the pencil aren’t coherent with paper’s shadowless feature.
otherwise, pretty good.
You could try to add a bounce light to simulate the light reflecting off the paper,
to brighten up the underside of the pencil just a little.
It’s looking great. I would agree with andycircus about the bounce light. The right half of the frame looks a little too dark. I would try to have more even lighting so it looks less like there’s a spotlight on the pencil. I like the line on the paper, that was a nice touch. Maybe you could add a rip or two along that edge? As if someone ripped off a perforated edge.