Someone asked me at a gaming night last weekend what I would buy if I was starting resin printing today, knowing what I now know. I gave the short version over a pint, but the question stayed with me. The real answer is not the generic beginner gear list every YouTube video recycles. It is more specific, more opinionated, and in places genuinely different from what I actually did when I started.
This article is the longer answer. What I would buy, why, and what I would deliberately not buy even though forums and well meaning hobbyists would tell me to. Twenty seven years of miniature hobby experience and several years of resin printing means I know the traps I fell into. This is the route that avoids them.
The printer: Elegoo Mars 4
If I was starting today, I would buy the Elegoo Mars 4 at around $149.
That looks like a budget recommendation from someone who has been in the hobby this long. Hear me out. The Mars 4 does one thing. It prints at 18 micron pixel size with no features to distract from the result. No tilting VAT. No wifi. No smart levelling. A simple, focused machine that produces prints on par with anything in its class.
When I started printing I went bigger than I needed because that felt like the responsible adult decision. I was wrong. A small printer you understand fully is more useful than a big printer you find intimidating. You will print faster, iterate more, and make more mistakes cheaply on a Mars 4. That mistake ladder is how you get good at resin printing.
The build plate is 143 x 89mm, which fits several 28mm or 32mm miniatures at once. Once you outgrow it, the natural upgrade is a Saturn 4 Ultra, and the Mars 4 stays as a second printer for test prints. You do not have to sell it. If your budget for that second machine is tight, second hand Saturns are extraordinary value in 2026.
The reason I would not start with a Saturn 4 Ultra, a Photon M7 Pro, or a Jupiter 2 is that the upfront cost creates pressure. A hobbyist who has spent $500 or $900 is reluctant to experiment and reluctant to fail. A Mars 4 owner is not precious about any of that. Failure is cheap. Learning is fast.
The resin: Wargamer Resin
I would start with one bottle of Wargamer Resin and nothing else.
Wargamer Resin is purpose built for printing miniatures. It has the flex I want so prints survive being dropped off the table, the detail retention I need for faces and filigree, and a forgiveness profile that tolerates a beginner who has not yet learned to wash and cure perfectly.
I would not start with the free bottle that comes in the printer box. It is generic filler that the manufacturer includes to avoid shipping you an empty machine. Beginning with a sharp, forgiving miniature resin makes the first month much less frustrating.
I would also not start with TGM 7, even though it is my favourite resin for character models. As a first bottle it is too unforgiving. The flex is higher, which makes supports trickier, and the wash and cure window is less generous. Start with Wargamer, move to TGM 7 in month two or three.
Sunlu ABS-Like is the cheap bulk workhorse I use for rank and file and terrain. I would add it as a second bottle around the two month mark. Not as a first purchase.
If you want the longer version of this conversation, I wrote a full article on why expensive resin is not automatically better.
Wash and cure station
I would buy a combined wash and cure station on day one. No manual washing. No UV nail lamp hack.
The Elegoo Mercury Plus or the Anycubic Wash and Cure 3.0 at around $120 is the right purchase. I have watched too many new hobbyists save $120 by washing in a jar of alcohol and curing under a desk lamp, and the result is almost always a run of tacky or under cured prints they blame on the resin or the printer. The wash and cure station is not optional kit.
Either brand is fine. Buy whichever is available for less than $150 when you go to order.
Workspace
The workspace I would set up is deliberately unglamorous. A corner of a garage, a shelf in a workshop, or a spare room. Not a bedroom. Not a living room. Somewhere with a window that opens and a hard floor.
I would run a window extractor fan on day one, not a month later. A $30 fan and a few feet of ducting is the difference between a sustainable hobby and a sensitisation risk. I wrote a full article on ventilation and safety that covers this in detail. This is the one category where I would overspend rather than underspend.
Underneath the printer goes a silicone mat. Next to it lives a box of nitrile gloves and a 3M 6200 respirator. On the wall goes a cheap whiteboard for exposure settings, printer hour count, and lessons learned. I did not do this when I started and I wasted months re solving problems I had already solved. Write it down.
The first models I would print
The first model off the printer would be the manufacturer’s calibration test. Not a dragon, not a hero character, not the cool thing I downloaded before the printer arrived. The RERF exposure test. Do it first, get the exposure right, and do not move on until the test looks correct.
The second print would be a 3DBenchy or equivalent quick benchmark. Ten minutes to confirm the machine is happy.
The third print would be a single 28mm miniature on sensible supports. One figure, not a plate of eight. Something with a face, drapery, a weapon, and armour detail. A fantasy warrior or a sci fi trooper is perfect.
Only once I had printed three successful single miniatures would I move to a full plate. The temptation to fill the build plate on print one is strong and I would resist it. I wrote a longer piece on what to print first on a new resin printer that covers the specific test models and why each one matters.
The communities I would join
I would join one or two small, technical communities and ignore the large general ones.
The r/resinprinters subreddit is useful for troubleshooting but gets overrun with repetitive beginner posts. Read it for specific problems, do not scroll the feed.
A focused Discord for the specific printer brand is more valuable. The Elegoo owners Discord has people who know the Mars line deeply and can diagnose a problem from a photograph in minutes.
The general “3D printing” Facebook groups are mostly noise. Skip them.
Pick two or three YouTubers and stick with them rather than chasing every video in the algorithm. My own channel is one option. Fewer, deeper, more specific is better than a scattered diet of shorts.
The mistakes I would consciously avoid
A short list of things I did when I started that I would skip this time.
Upgrading too early. I bought a second printer before I had mastered the first. I bought an enclosure before I had solved my ventilation. Use what you have, hit the limits, then upgrade. Do not buy ahead of the problem.
Stockpiling resin. I bought five bottles in my first month because a deal came up. Two had partially degraded by the time I opened them nine months later. Buy one bottle at a time for the first few months. The deals come back.
Chasing every slicer setting. The settings that matter are exposure time, lift height, and lift speed. Tune those and ignore the rest until you are much further in.
Printing at the max build plate every time. A failed plate of eight is eight failures. A failed single model is one. Early on, one is enough.
Ignoring the calibration tests. I thought I knew better than to run a RERF test. I was wrong. Run the test.
The things I would NOT buy in the first six months
None of the following are necessary in the first six months. Most are optimisations that make more sense once you know your workflow.
- A dedicated curing chamber beyond the wash and cure station
- A heating mat for the VAT
- An air purifier
- A second printer
- A third party build plate with magnetic flex
- A dedicated slicer PC
- A spare LCD screen as a backup
- A filter funnel system that costs more than $20
- Speciality resins for temperature, flex, or transparency
The hours spent researching these are hours not spent printing, which is the activity that actually makes you a better resin printer.
What this actually costs on day one
Adding up the starter kit at the specific gear I would pick:
- Elegoo Mars 4: $149
- Wargamer Resin (1 bottle): $35
- Wash and cure station: $120
- Nitrile gloves (100): $10
- Respirator: $30
- Window extractor fan and ducting: $60
- Silicone mat: $10
- Cleanup tools and kitchen paper: $20
Total: around $430 to $450 for a complete, safe, working setup that will carry me through the first several months without any upgrades.
For the deeper version of this gear list, see the full starter kit article. For the walkthrough of the first print once the kit arrives, the beginner setup guide is the next step.
Where I would go from here
Print every day or every other day for the first month. Run the full calibration once. Keep a written log. Fail cheaply on the Mars 4 until the failures stop. Then, and only then, consider the next purchase.
At month six, the next purchase would be a Saturn 4 Ultra for larger batches. Not a flagship. Not a Jupiter. A Saturn 4 Ultra alongside the Mars 4, with the Mars relegated to test prints. That is the two printer setup most hobbyists genuinely need, and beyond that the returns diminish quickly.
The final thing I would tell past me is that the equipment is a small part of the hobby. The models, the paint, the games, the communities, the friends you print for. That is where the reward actually lives. The printer is a tool. Buy the tool you need to start, start with it properly, and let the rest of the hobby grow from there.
My free miniature resin printing course on the home page walks through the same kit with the gear on camera. Whichever route you take, start small, start sensibly, and give yourself room to grow into the hobby rather than trying to arrive at the finish line on day one.