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How to add a hair-like texture to a paint brush bristle
martinperezg
Member Posts: 5 ✭
Hi everyone,
I'm working on a custom 3D model of a jumbo paintbrush for display, and I'm trying to add a hair-like texture to the bristles — something that looks like flowing or stylized etched strands.
I'm a recent Onshape convert, and so far, I’ve tried a few approaches, but haven’t found a satisfying method that gives the desired result:
What I’ve Tried:
Wrap Feature:
Doesn’t allow selection of the bristle as a target (it's a compound curved surface).
Seems to only work on cylinders, cones, and similar developable surfaces.
Split with Sketch:
-Attempted to project flowing “hairline” sketches onto the surface using a sketch placed on a nearby plane.
Got the error “Selected entities do not split selected faces.” Likely due to curvature or projection misalignment.
Extrude + Boolean Subtract:
-Created extruded “ribbons” from 2D hair sketches and subtracted them from the bristle body.
While it technically works, the results look more like hard geometric cuts than natural flowing hair, too rigid and not visually convincing.
Fuzzy Skin in slicer:
As a workaround, I considered applying fuzzy skin in the slicer (like Cura or Bambu Studio), but it’s still a randomized texture and doesn’t give me the artistic “hair stroke” effect I’m aiming for.
What I'm Looking For is a way to engrave or emboss thin, flowing, hair-like curves onto a rounded/domed bristle shape, ideally with shallow depth and a sense of natural direction and taper.
Any suggestions for better results?
Thanks so much in advance for any guidance!
– Martin
Answers
You could try lofting each hair to an end point, kind of like with the Draw custom feature.
Essentially what it is doing is lofting a profile along a path to a point. So you could do a few bristles, then circular pattern to get the rest.
Another approach would be to revolve just 1/16 or so of the brush, then fillet the edges of that with a variable fillet. Then circular pattern that slice of the brush. This would give you a brush like texture.
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Thank you @MichaelPascoe I managed to use your suggested tool to come up with something closer to what I needed. I will continue practicing with this tool to improve the bristle for future iterations of the product. Thank you again!
Looks great!
Learn more about the Gospel of Christ ( Here )
CADSharp - We make custom features and integrated Onshape apps! Learn How to FeatureScript Here 🔴