That is a fantastic way of doing it, and your results speak for themselves. If you use a tool with a rounded ball on it's tip, then you can form an compounded curve arc on each petal. You can put them together in pieces, and do the edges even tighter, rounding each petal as you move along. PVA glues allow dome shape forming after it dries, ZIP DRY allows the most, but does take a long time to finally dry, but not a long time to hold the pats together, and works well with water forming, which requires the use of a Pigment ink printer. Making the piece the way you have gives a great result, separating the petals would be more time consuming, but in the end, with the rounding tool, the seems would be visible, but not felt. Honestly though, could you ask for a better sphere than the one above? It would be pretty hard to beat. I believe that sphere would be better done with conical pieces, as rounding out from the inside on long strips would be easier. I've never been a fan of petal formed shapes IMHO.