A normal person would test print a Rook for their first model. I said "f it, we ball" and printed Miku at 0.02mm split between two different slicing software. 100% success rate!
Just a dry fit before sanding.
Printed on a Mars 4 Ultra using Elegoo Water-Washable 8k resin. (Washed with 91% iso)
Model is [Hatsune Miku Rotten Girl by Your Studio](https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/art/hatsune-miku-rotten-girl)
I chose the model partially because I like the song it's based on, and partially because it seemed relatively simple to print and build compared to most things I was seeing. (Oh, and it didn't cost 20 freaking dollars for the file.)
First print (Hair and hair accessories) was laid out, supported and sliced in Lychee.
(Print Time: 13 hours)
* I actually liked Lychee decently, but their pay walls are so extensive that I don't want to use it further if I don't have to.
* I especially liked how well the auto-generated supports worked.
* Only mistakes that I think I made on this run were that I probably should have hollowed the back of her head and her twin-tails, because they're very large and now *very* heavy. (Her head alone legitimately might weigh as much as the rest of her body combined.)
Second print (Face, Body, and Base) I swapped over to Elegoo Satellite after eventually figuring out how to convert my resin settings. (Elegoo and Lychee use different phrasing which makes it a little annoying to translate between the two.)
(Print Time: 15 Hours)
* Of the four software I tried using, Satellite was easily the most user friendly in design IMO, in addition it's also not paywalled, which was a plus.
* Somehow the print seemed to come out even better despite identical settings. The layer lines are even harder to see, and the details seem to be sharper.
* My only complaint with Satellite is that their Auto-generation for supports is actual garbage.
* Even when using Trees like Lychee uses, it generated twice as many, and it did so in *super* high density.
* I finally decided to try their "Evo" supports for this second print to see how they are. TL;DR, I genuinely hate them.
* Not only did they leave *literally* 3-4 times as many bumps, but they're also all sharp and tall, meaning I'm going to be taking more time to sand down smooth. (You can literally see the difference in the amount of support bumps between the hair and everything else.)
* After hollowing the base, the software also *filled* it with supports that I'm fairly certain it didn't need. It did so to the point that the drain hole that I made isn't draining properly because supports are in the way.
* On top of that, the auto-gen also filled every keyway with supports.
* My personal conspiracy theory is that Elegoo makes more supports than necessary for two reasons. One is to make failures more rare to encourage more printing (so you buy more resin) and Two is making more supports to use up more resin. (so you buy more resin)
* Oh, and for some reason there was a nearly hour long difference in print speeds between what Lychee estimated and what Satellite produced.
* Mistakes on my end:
* I put the drain hole for the base on the wrong side(so no resin drained during printing)
* I probably could have saved *several* hours of printing by laying the base horizontal or diagonal to the plate instead of vertical
* On this one I left the models *way* too close to the build plate, *maybe* 5 mm, so removing the models from the playmate without shoving the blade into them was genuinely stressful.
Overall I'm *extremely* happy with how she turned out. You literally can't see the layer lines unless you're within 6 inches of the model. I'll be sure to update once I get everything sanded and painted!