Printing a sphere...

Hi everyone, I’m fairly new to resin 3D printing and recently challenged myself to make a realistic eye. The main issue is, of course, printing a sphere. When I tried printing a solid one directly, the large cross-sectional area caused it to stick to the FEP and the print failed—the supports and build plate just couldn’t handle the peel force.

Right now, my workaround is printing the sphere on top of a small cylinder embedded into the raft. I break that off afterward, fill the cavity with UV resin, and sand the support marks. It works, but the surface isn’t as smooth as I’d like.

My ultimate goal is to get the cleanest possible sphere surface with no visible supports—ideally eliminating supports altogether. Has anyone found a good method or tutorial for printing spheres more effectively? I’ve considered making it hollow with a drainage hole in transparent resin to reduce peel forces, but I’m worried about trapping uncured resin inside.

Maybe my print is already good enough and there more easy to sand resin out there ?

Thanks for any advice!

- ELEGOO Saturn 4 Ultra

- resin ELEGOO Standard 2.0

- I print in an enclosure with the elegoo heater