Spherical Hex Map

My last post generated two types of responses: 

"How did you wrap the hex map onto a globe?"

"You actually can't. It's been a quest of the computer games industry..."

This is a case of me working forward and backwards with some assistive tech to get a result. I want a globe covered with hexes and I already know that doesn't work so how did I do this? 

"Well, believe me, Mike, I calculated the odds of this succeeding versus the odds I was doing something incredibly stupid... and I went ahead anyway."

"Map" and "hex" have specific mathematical meanings that don't apply to what I intend to do. The final image will be a drawing that might (I hope) look like a hex map on a globe. I am constrained by the paper's dimensions - 13 hexes wide and 9 hexes high (and each hex will be subdivided) to represent a drawing of a hex map on a hemisphere. 

The image on the left was a standard subdivided hex, distorted to look like it was bulging out of the page. It's constructed by a distorted hex, you can see where it literally becomes sketchy. 

The image below is a more refined and localized example of the same idea with some minor changes. 

The computer-generated hex map from Worldogragher is distorted to a hand-drawn globe with hex-like shapes. I used the simple icon set so I get a sense of how shapes distort like this. Virtually none of the points from the Worldographer map match the hand-drawn hex globe points. I am going to "bend" both images to something in between.

I am hoping for a piece of artwork that looks good and is compelling. 

Aside from the initial subdivided hex map that is flat, there is no math or code. It's done by hand to look good. 

You can download a set of normal hex map templates from DriveThruRPG here. 

          The Hex Pack

        The Hex Pack