Is your highpoly subtool made out of individual cubes polygon islands? If so, perhaps try dynameshing it first so that it becomes one single merged element before trying to project.
A quicker method might be to isolate those individual polygons that are causing problems, invert your selection (so they are hidden) then do Tool > Geometry > Modify Topology > Del Hidden, then Close Holes.
Lol, my bad. Im thinking about extruding the polygons around that area and then subdeviding and sculpting. That way I still get the illusion that there is mass there but I also get the sculpted details...
If you are planning to use this for your portfolio I'd set a maximum of 300.000 polygons. And when you're done, derez it to as low as you can go without loosing too much detail.
You need more polygons, the reason the the right most reference image has a bit better shading than yours is because there's extra splits and normals where those meshes intersect.
Very nice, it shows that Maya is definitely starting to catch up with regard to basic poly modelling tools. Now all they have to do is solve all the rest of the polygon handling problems...
Excellent work! (as usual) I'm not sure if I'm diggin' the alpha mapped hands, though it really does make the model look like a much higher polygon model. The wings are incredible!
Before you get some replies giving you ballpark figures, I recommend that you read this: http://www.rsart.co.uk/2006/11/20/how-many-polygons-in-a-piece-of-string/