Subd polygonal modelling (hardsurface) - I focused for years on optimising edgeflow and topology design for my hi-res meshes, which is essential when portraying complex mechanical objects.
sketched hair and cape btw.. my target is desktop videogame, so im not sure if i'm gonna use separate polygon hair or one mesh for the whole head and hair..
I think that the Cover is from Metal. The Rest ist Plastic/Glass. I like how much Polygons u spend to the rounder shapes. But your Materials needs work.
Do you sugest for the low poly to use lower res versions of the model or use the plugin to reduce polygons? I doubt I can export the high poly as is now ...
in your spefic use case you got in the screen shot why would'nt you just duplicate the polygons from the object your trying to conform too and use those?
Didn't Bayonetta have fairly small, sectioned off environments? Since they have stricter control over what is shown on screen they can feasibly spend more polygons on assets.
I would say these days it wouldn't matter because a 2 sided shader is cheap and an extra 100 polygons won't change anything either. So then I'd go with the shader.