Starting working on a model and as usual the biggest problem i normally face is terminating edges. I've attached a pic. On the right you can see the splits i've created needed to pull out the shape i want. I've gone far beyond this model and got the basic model finished but the splits you see i've continued all the way around the model. It's going to be quite a highly detailed model but i have so much detail there when using subd's it's just way too heavy. Already for just one half and it's not completed i'm at 3360 faces before converting to Subd's. I can't see where else i can termiante the edges other than taking them all the way around the model like i have without creating a load of tri's.

This is going to be rendered in Mental ray using FG and GI.