If you’ve wanted to get in on the “fuzzy skin” action with 3D printing but held off because you didn’t want to fiddle with slicer post-processing, you need to check out the paint-on fuzzy skin generator detailed in the video below.

For those who haven’t had the pleasure, fuzzy skin is a texture that can be applied to the outer layers of a 3D print to add a little visual interest and make layer lines a little less obvious. Most slicers have it as an option, but limit the wiggling action of the print head needed to achieve it to the XY plane. Recently, [TenTech] released post-processing scripts for three popular slicers that enable non-planar fuzzy skin by wiggling the print head in the Z-axis, allowing you to texture upward-facing surfaces.

The first half of the video below goes through [TenTech]’s updates to that work that resulted in a single script that can be used with any of the slicers. That’s a pretty neat trick by itself, but not content to rest on his laurels, he decided to make applying a fuzzy skin texture to any aspect of a print easier through a WYSIWYG tool. All you have to do is open the slicer’s multi-material view and paint the areas of the print you want fuzzed. The demo print in the video is a hand grip with fuzzy skin applied to the surfaces that the fingers and palm will touch, along with a little bit on the top for good measure. The print looks fantastic with the texture, and we can see all sorts of possibilities for something like this.

Thanks for the tip, [John].