I named it Diskoball as it is a spiked disco ball inspired by a dragon egg (as seen in Game of Thrones).
This was a first study done by hand, of how to fit the scales so no empty spot was exposed. The task was too complex to be done by hand though, so I moved to Illustrator.
I divided the sphere area in 6 "petals" and imagined them as being diamond shape, then marked the corners of the scales (hexagon shapes) and constrained them into the area of the actual petal, and added tips at their ends so they overlap the one right next to it.
This is the vector file that was sent to be cut in mirror acrylic shapes (I made 7 of each just in case, but it was not needed). The next stage is all done by hand, where I cover a 30cm diameter styrofoam ball with styrofoam tape (which happened to be mirror-like, how convenient) and then sticking the scales in place with 3M tape.
That is my water bottle by the way, I work sober most of the time. The whole thing took one day and a lot of help from mum and sis, but I was so happy with it. Thanks for reading this far and I hope you liked it as well.