Something different:-)

I was busy on the computer uploading pix to be sent elsewhere, and had some time on my hands, so I decided to build something that I have been wanting to build for a couple of years...a rose. Now you might think that I have been wanting to build it for a someone, and you would almost be right:-).  But I have been enamored by the thought building graceful organic shapes....LEGO elements are not organic by any stretchof the imagination.

Also the LLCA roses that I have seen are nice, but the roses are slopes, and look like closed buds to me. I want to see petals. So I have been thinking about this for some time...how do you do overlapping petals? It's a tough challenge. And fun.

In my Dark Ages, I was deeply into origami, and one of the most incredible models was a rose - from one square piece of paper! Ithink it was a Kawasaki rose, and at one time I was able to fold one from memory - it takes about an hour to fold, but the result is paper magic:



I really enjoyed the moment the flat paper became this bulb that you bloomed with the folds. And I wondered how to do that with LEGO parts.

Now, I am not the first one to build roses. There's the LLCA version, and there is a rose bouquet built by John Neal that is pretty darned nice. His idea understands the nature of the flower - the overlap and spiral of the petals.

Another inspiration is the enchanted rose from "Beauty and the Beast." I have wanted to do something with a sculpture of that rose with a few petals onthe table...you get the idea.

So a couple of nights ago, I was stuck with a lot of time on my hands and no way to use my computer to work, so I went to build. And well, thinking about a someone led me to start thinking about building the rose.

It took me three different versions of SNOT building and an entire night, but I built this:


You can see more of it at my Flickr gallery.

The model is a lot of SNOT, as the center core is a 1x1 brick with studs on all sides. I also have flex tube in the stem so it can bend..anythingto make LEGO elements go non-traditional is good in my book:-)! The leaves are held in place with minifig neck braces with studs - this also lets me rotate the leaves to wherever I want.

The funny thing is that the rose is just like the  origami rose in that if you look at it the wrong way, it doesn't looke like a rose, but a bunch of plates. If you look the wrong way at the origami rose, it looks like a very wrinkled sheet of paper.

And that's just fine:-).