GrowleyMonster
Creator of the Imperfecto
Keep in mind that I am a beginner at this. More experienced guys have more refined methods, and most prefer to roll parejos, or straight sided cigars, rather than figurados, which are basically any other shape besides a cylinder.
For the bunched filler, to me the perfecto shape is a natural one. Just accentuate the center bulge and the end tapers. When you tear off the ends of the leaves that are too long, put some blunt end inward, blunt ends overlapping. The normal way is to tear off excess leaf and put the off bits on the bunch with the blunt ends out, to fill up the ends and make a nice cylinder of the bunch. I am doing the opposite, building up the middle at the expense of filling out the ends. I use a DIY rolling machine to apply the binder and it will of course be loose at the ends but still help keep the filler bunch together. I sometimes hand roll a second binder to lock in the shape, and of course hand roll the wrapper.
It should be obvious that when rolling a taper, the narrow tip rolls up less wrapper than the wider part. So, the bunch, when hand rolling the tapered end, will naturally roll in a curve. The wide part travels further per revolution than the narrow part. So the binder and wrapper, or just wrapper, must also be cut into an S curve. I have seen this in videos, which is where I got the idea, and I will make a video once I have a little more experience. Meanwhile just do a search on youtube for rolling perfectos, pyramides, trompetas, or figurados in general. This forum has an extensive library of videos and I am sure you will find something there.
To observe the concept, take a quarter sheet of paper and roll it into a cone, and secure it with tape. for convenience, cut the open end of the cone straight across. Now lay the cone along the edge of a full sheet of paper. Mark where the pointed end and the wide end touch the full sheet of paper. Roll the cone about 1/16th of a turn. Again, mark where the pointed end and the wide end touch. Keep going until you start running off the paper. Connect the dots. You should have a small tight curve at the pointed end and a bigger curve at the wide end. Cut the marked sheet along those curved lines and roll your cone up inside this curved shape. It makes a perfect fit. But if you try to roll the cone up in a straight strip of paper, it just doesn't work. The strip of paper you are wrapping around the cone will be loose on the edge toward the pointed end, and tight on the edge toward the wide end. Or else, you will try to make the straight strip lay nice and flat, and it will veer off toward the middle and you will lose your overlap.
The tapered end of a perfecto is of course not a perfect cone. As the roll progresses from the foot toward the middle, the curve of the wrapper straightens out. Once past the middle and moving out towards the head, the curve resumes gradually, but in the other direction. The center part should have the leaf veins parallel to the cigar. You can cheat by rolling head and foot in pieces of wrapper separately and then wrapping the whole cigar. You can also finish the head with an extra large panuelo to reinforce it. You don't have to follow the rules. You just want the wrapper to go on smoothly with a bit of tension while not making the bunch too tight for a good draw. If you are not too concerned with having a perfect roll and perfect wrapper color and orientation, and just want a good burn, it is easier than it might seem. In factories, where appearance and consistency are extremely important, only the most skilled rollers make figurados.
Really, to me it seems easier and more natural to roll a perfecto shape than a parejo. I bundle up the bunch and let it speak to me. Rolling a parejo is forcing the bunch to conform to a particular shape. Figurados are to me the easy way out. I am not the master of the bunch. We are in a partnership with me being sort of the senior partner, and we reach a consensus on the final shape. Obviously I do not use a mold, though certainly there are plenty of molds out there available for purchase, for perfectos. Part of the skill in rolling them in a factory is getting the bunch to conform well to the mold, while not having empty or too fully packed areas. When you are freestyling it and letting it happen, you are not developing a high skill level at rolling, but you are making it easier to roll a nice smoke with less skill.