Design of the Week: David’s Cranium

This week’s selection is the artistic “David’s Cranium” by designer Matthew Vennemeyer.

This is a very peculiar 3D model that is an excellent example of a public domain mashup. Vennemeyer, who is a contributor on MyMiniFactory, decided to mixup an already mixed-up 3D model.

The saga begins with an excellent 3D scan of Michelangelo’s famous David statue, made by the Statens Museum for Kunst (National Art Museum of Denmark). The scan was obtained from a cast of the original statue that was transformed into a bronze bust in 1899.

This wonderful 3D bust was then mashed up by Devin Montes of YouTube Channel MakeAnything. Montes chose to transform the bust into a geode-like structure by slicing off part of the skull and inserting a geometric surface. It’s a very cool print, and you can see it being printed in this video:

It apparently wasn’t quite cool enough for Vennemeyer, who decided to take it a step further and replace the geode surface with a skull. Vennemeyer was able to position the skull surface in just such a way that it seems as if you’re looking inside the head of David to see his skull. It’s like X-ray vision.

It’s an incredible 3D model to see, and certainly to 3D print as well.

I’m hoping someone makes a multi-material version of this design so that it could be 3D printed in separate colors for the statue and skull portions.

Designs such as this demonstrate the importance of the free movement of intellectual property, as David’s Cranium would not have been possible without the legal ability to remix designs.

You can pick up a copy of David’s Cranium at no charge from MyMiniFactory, where you can find thousands of terrific – and fully print-tested – 3D models for download.

Via MyMiniFactory