ascii - that's beautiful. If you post a close up of one feather in a display mode that shows grids, perhaps people would have suggestions about other ways to reduce poly count? That is, maybe do some work with texture and transmap, but keep some polys for clarity? For example, since an individual feather is most visible near the tip, keep more polys there, but "cheat" (transmap) elsewhere. Likewise, if feathers slightly overlap each other, then one long edge is visible, other is hidden...