I've been away earning money to pay for my mapping addiction and I've just landed a little job for Disney making a new globe of the Star Wars Deathstar- they'll be printing on to various products- yey!
Trouble is the printing is to be on to 8 gores of the flat materials, which then get assembled to make the globes.

Simple "double square" spherical projection (I've done some globe jigsaw puzzles before like that) isn't going to be sufficient this time!
I have to establish the grid for the flat material first, so I tried Adobe Illustrator's Blend tool- blending the verticals from the gore sides in to the straight central line, then blending horizontals from a half circle to a flat line at the equator (see image) .
Screen Shot 2016-12-10 at 02.44.47.png
I'm not liking the accuracy of what I've done so far though

Any advice?
Or does someone have a grid layout for an 8 gore globe already to share?

Job's got to be handed in in 2 days from now.

Thanks.