My first model was way too complex with over 100,000 faces… smoothed one too many times, haha. And would also prove impossible to print with a million parts, so I decided to use the same sort of coral protrusions on a much simpler shape: the Chinese gourd, which has a lot of mythological connotations and is a shape/plant I am completely obsessed with.

Modeled using NURBS > Bezier Curves > Rotate.
Then converted to polygons > face extrusions + sculptGEOMETRY tool + smoothing.

I also experimented with different colours/transparency as my ultimate model would be hollow and emit a translucent glow… perhaps consider outsourcing using transparent resin.