Hello, Nem

Color is actually given artificially to the images. I work on a standard gray background in Maya. Proven, so no point in trying to invent another one.

As per your question do the following:

• Convert object to SUBD´s
• Pick a 2Pane Layout (Outliner/Pers works for me)
• Panel > Perspective > Pers (You´ve got two perspective windows now)
• Move the frontier at your liking
• In one of the viewports, select Polygon mode for the SubD.
• In that same viewport, Show > Subdivision Surfaces (to uncheck it)
• In the other viewport, Show > Polygons (to uncheck it)

... And you´re done. Now you can change the polygon proxy, and watch it update far faster in the other window.

Hope it helps,