June 21st is Father’s Day and makers at CEL – Robox have prepared an extra-special 3D printable gift for your Dad. The manufacturers of the famed Robox 3D printer – one that aims to usher in 3D printing as a tool for mass manufacturing with print speeds 300% greater than its competitors – have chosen a unique symbol of our times to commemorate the greatness of the male parent.
This Father’s Day, choose to gift him a Dad Bod…..whether he really has it or not.
It’s Robox’ hilarious take on Michelangelo’s sculpture – David. Crafted in the 16th century out of marble, the historically famous sculpture symbolizes the defense of civil liberties, strength, youth and beauty. The Dad Bod, made famous by a student at Clemson University earlier this year, symbolizes the man who has achieved that elusive ‘balance between a beer gut and working out’. The man who ‘goes to the gym occasionally but also drinks heavily on weekends and enjoys eating eight slices of pizza at a time’. The seemingly attractive middle ground between having washboard abs and being overweight. It’s about letting go, but not quite. Championed by Leonardo di Caprio no less, with sunglasses and cargo shorts on a beach no less.
As the story goes, the young stone-slinger David did kill Goliath with accuracy and heroic bravery. The fourteen foot marble statue, that took more than two years of painstaking work to complete, praises the rare and exceptional. But the Dad Bod, oh the Dad Bod captures that omnipresent creature of our times, right in the middle of his noble but healthy struggle against the unhealthy. A monument in 61 grams of thermoplastic, prints in a little over four hours, far less time assuredly than it took Michelangelo to carve out an ab on David. Be warned, for your 3D printed Dad Bod you might have to gather enough energy to raise an arm, extend a firm finger and push a button. Rather appropriate, don’t you think?
This isn’t the first time that CEL-Robox has brought the irony of our times in 3D printed form. They do see it as a great tool to creatively capture popular trends. As their CEO Chris Elmsworthy puts it,
“One of the coolest things about 3D printing is the ability to express your creativity with the technology. If you see a trend spreading and becoming an iconic part of pop culture, nothing is stopping you from putting your own spin on it. If we can create a mashup of one of Michelangelo’s David with the recent dad bod trend, others can follow a similar vein of thought and develop a unique, never seen before print for their own use and pleasure.”
Earlier in March, they brought a similarly humorous twist to the Hungry Hungry Hippos game. Jeremy Clarkson of Top Gear game is known for having thrown his toys out of the pram when he couldn’t have a steak at the end of his day, so staff at CEL-Robox replaced the hungry hippo heads in the game with 3D printed hungry Clarkson’s heads and even made the design available for free online. They’ve extended the same kindness with the Dad Bod. So do your part and download it here. Your dad would be proud.
And just in case you’re worried about the nudity, because Queen Victoria was and David was given a fig leaf, the languid Dad Bod, still carrying a sling, poses comfortably in a contemporary set of underwear briefs.
