Don't convert trimmed surfaces to polygons. I've found that the best method is to untrim a model in splines, and then retrim it once it's converted to polys. Most spline models will triangulate the trimmed surfaces, creating a mess of the mesh. We'll cover this in the next section. Don't triangulate a model-use quadrilateral polygons.
Triangles take up too much memory and are inefficient.
Be prepared to go back and forth quite a bit between your spline and polygonal modeler. For this model, I shuttled between the two more than 30 times. Each set of spline spheres has been converted into polygons giving us a variety of results. Now that the model's been converted, the next step is to detail the airplane. You can elevate the look of your model from amateurish to professional simply by paying attention to detail.