The first new model of 2022 is here! I wanted to challenge myself and with Valentine’s Day coming up I felt a Rose was appropriate. And I can safely say that this was the most difficult to design model yet.

The first challenge was to replicate how the petals of a rose naturally spiral out as they bloom. I also wanted to keep to the usual “low-poly” or “faceted” style that I enjoy. I also had to make the petals thick so that you wouldn’t see any tabs or part numbers on either side of the petals. This meant making and sorting a tangled mess of vertices that got more and more difficult as the number of petals increased. I ended up having to revise and tweak the petals a total of four times, and that was before I even cut out and assembled anything!

The stem and leaves were pretty straightforward after the complexity of the petals. The only thing I worried about was that the stem might not be strong enough to hold up the flower. I ended up making it triangular to make it sturdier but after assembling the first prototype I had to go back to the drawing board. It turned out that there are roughly three sheets of paper concentrated in a space about the size of a baseball and the strength of a triangle wasn’t going to cut it. I ended up making an internal support structure that helped immensely. I also revised how the leaves attach to make it easier to build in general and was quite happy with the result.

All in all, I think it was a good start to the year. I’ve got quite a few ideas that I’m excited to work on and share. I don’t want to give anything away but there are going to be some more video game-related ones and I have an interesting space and science-related one, if I can figure out how to do it that is.

Anyway, I should get back to designing new models. Thanks for reading and I hope you’re just as excited as I am for what’s to come!

The Papercraftsman