3D Reflection 34 - making tree leaves and papyrus in 3D

I decided to try making the papyrus plants and palm tree leaves in 3D instead of using alphas at first, as I thought I could achieve a convincing realistic result.

I like how the papyrus plants turned out, as I was able to use copied UVs and also change the shape of the stem by preserving the UVs. I was therefore able to make variations of both standing and bent papyrus stems. I will also be able to practise lodding with this in UE4.

I was not fully convinced with the palm tree leaves however. I felt that they were far too high poly and did not achieve a good level of detail. I decided that instead, I would use an alpha to make the leaves as I could make them lower poly but higher detail in terms of shape.