base diff is looking nice dude... made real progress with this. Maybe increase the edge loops in the wires.. so they hang more naturally. Bake looks decent to me... but maybe i am not seeing what you are. Maybe give the whole diff texture a little more contrast? either way this is looking awesome.
As above, nice looking high poly! It’s difficult to reduce the polys without knowing how you are planning on UV'ing the model but as a quick pass here is where you could save a few! blue = can be removed green = inserted red = T junction I think the main ones are down the center line, but these might be for mirroring the…
I wouldn't worry too much about your count as long as you're not doing anything terribly silly with your geo (Hard edges by uv seams etc). Making an efficient UV layout is also quite important so spend a decent amount of time on that. At the moment I can see you have capped a cylinder with a vertice in the centre, when you…