Acanthus Flame Drop Onlay

A tapering acanthus drop that rises like a slow flame from a rounded teardrop base. This vertical onlay is built to draw the eye upward. It starts at the bottom with a plump, split teardrop bulb, wrapped by a low collar of curled acanthus leaves that split into two drop-shaped lobes. From there a central leaf spine climbs, throwing off symmetrical feathered acanthus leaflets that shrink as they rise, and finishes in three stacked flame-bud finials one above the other. The whole thing is carved in the round with a rounded back, so it stands proud of the surface as a true applied ornament rather than a shallow etch. It's the classic 'drop' or pendant motif for the underside of a mantel, the stile of a cabinet door, a mirror crest, or the centre of a bed headboard. Print notes: • Long and narrow, so nest it vertically on the bed/blank to make the most of your stock. • On a router, rough with a 6mm ball-nose and finish the leaf channels with a 2mm tapered ball for clean vein separations; leave onion-skin tabs at the base to stop the thin tip lifting. • FDM/resin: print flat on its back — the rounded reverse means no support scarring shows once glued down. • Mirror it to make matched left/right pairs, and rescale height to fit the panel without distorting the leaf width.