Anime Body Pillows, Printed One At A Time

Search for an anime body pillow and you get two completely different kinds of result. One is a shop selling pre printed covers of characters from shows. The other is a printer who will put your file on fabric.

This page is the second kind, and the difference matters because everything about the decision changes. You are not choosing between designs somebody else made. You are choosing a size, a fabric, and whether the artwork you have is good enough to survive being enlarged to a metre and a half.

What you need before you start

• Artwork you own or commissioned, at the largest size you have it
• A decision about one pose or two, because both sides print at no extra cost
• A fabric, which comes down to how the art is drawn more than personal taste
• Whether you need the insert as well, or already own a long pillow

None of that requires a minimum order. Most printers in this category batch their runs and ask for five or more. We print on demand, so one piece costs the same per unit as twenty, and the run is never waiting for other people to fill it.

A drawing that looks clean on a screen is being enlarged to roughly life size on fabric. Some art gains from that and some falls apart, and it is not always the art you expect.

Line weight decides more than resolution

Cel shaded work with confident outlines enlarges beautifully. Very fine hatching and thin sketchy linework does the opposite: at 150 cm the lines separate and the drawing starts to look unfinished rather than delicate. If your style is light, thickening the outer contour before printing is usually enough to fix it.

Flat colour is your friend

Large areas of flat colour print exactly as drawn. Soft airbrushed gradients can band slightly on fabric, which is a property of textile printing rather than of the file. If your piece leans heavily on gradients, peach skin hides it better than tricot does.

Compose for 3 to 1

150 by 50 cm is a tall narrow frame. Art drawn for any other shape has to be cropped, and cropping a standing figure costs the feet or the top of the head. If you are drawing specifically for this, work at 3 to 1 from the first sketch.

Keep faces and important details at least 3 cm inside the edge, and leave about 2 cm of extra background beyond where you want the image to end. Sewing takes a little fabric at the seam, and that margin is the difference between a finished edge and a character missing part of their hair.

Where the seam lands

The zip runs along one long edge. Nothing important should sit on it. It is worth checking your layout with that in mind before you order, because it is easy to forget and obvious once printed.

This is the part most printers leave vague until after you have paid, so here it is plainly.

Yes

• Original characters you created
• Art you commissioned and paid for, with the artist's agreement to print it
• Photographs you took or own the rights to
• Mascots and artwork belonging to your own brand or event

No

Characters owned by a studio, publisher or game company. That includes fan art of those characters, however original the drawing is and whoever made it. The character is the protected part, not the drawing.

We decline those orders rather than printing them quietly, and that protects you as much as it protects us. It is also why a shop selling official covers and a printer taking your file are two different businesses.

Content we will not print

We do not print sexually explicit artwork, and we do not print sexualised art of characters who appear to be children, whatever age the design is stated to be. If you are unsure whether a piece is within that line, send it before you order and we will tell you.

Plenty of people want a body pillow of a character they have in their head rather than one they can draw. Commissioning is the normal route, and a few things make it go smoothly.

Say what it is for, in the first message

An artist drawing for a 3 to 1 body pillow composes differently to one drawing a portrait. Telling them the final size and shape at the start saves a redraw later, and most artists price it as a specific type of commission.

Ask for the working file

A flattened export at screen size is fine to look at and not much use to print. Ask for the largest version they have, as PNG or PSD. This is normal to request and costs nothing if you ask before they start.

Agree what you can do with it

Paying for art is not automatically the same as buying the right to print and sell it. For one personal pillow this is rarely an issue. For a run you intend to sell at a convention, agree it in writing first. Artists expect the question and are used to answering it.

If you are printing to sell, bring that agreement with the file. If you are printing one for yourself, the receipt for the commission is enough.

Illustrators, printing their own work

The largest group by some distance. One physical copy of a character they have drawn for years, or a small batch to sell at a table. No minimum order is usually the reason they find us.

People who commissioned something

The art exists, it is paid for, and it lives in a folder on a laptop. A body pillow is the largest thing you can turn a commission into without framing it.

Convention sellers

Five to twenty pieces across two or three designs, timed to a date that does not move. Print on demand means no stock left over if a design does not sell.

Gift buyers

Someone buying for a partner or friend who is into a style rather than a specific show. An original character drawn to a brief, printed once, is a gift nobody else can give twice.

Two ways to buy, and the right one depends entirely on whether you already own a long pillow.

Cover only

Cheaper, lighter to post, and the usual choice for anyone replacing a design or building a collection. It only works if your existing insert is 150 by 50 cm. Measure it flat before ordering, because a 160 insert will not fit and there is no way to make it.

Cover and insert together

The right choice if you are starting from nothing. The sizes are guaranteed to match, which removes the one mistake that ruins an otherwise good print.

How long it takes

About three days to print and sew once you approve the preview, then tracked shipping on top, which is normally four to eight business days depending on where it is going. Nothing waits for a batch to fill, which is where most of the time goes elsewhere.

If you are still deciding, these cover the parts this page only touches on.

• Dakimakura explained, the sizes, the inserts and how the format works
• Waifu pillows, composing a female character for a tall narrow frame
• Anime guy body pillows, male characters, broad shoulders and dark palettes
• Dakimakura covers, ordering the cover on its own
• Custom dakimakura printing, the file specifications in full
• Custom body pillows, the same pillow printed with a photograph instead