Waifu Pillows, Made From Your Own Character

Waifu is internet English borrowed from Japanese, and it means a favourite female character. A waifu pillow is a long body pillow with that character printed on the cover, usually at close to life size.

The object underneath is an ordinary dakimakura: 150 by 50 cm, a printed cover, a plain insert inside it. The word describes who is on it rather than anything about the pillow itself.

The joke and the sincere version

Both exist and both are ordered here. Somebody having fun with the idea, printing a character as a birthday present for a friend who will laugh. And somebody who spent two years designing an original character and wants one real object in the world with her on it.

The printing is identical. Only the reason is different, and neither is treated as odd.

What this page is not

We do not sell pre printed covers of characters from shows. You bring artwork you own and we put it on fabric. If you were looking for an official cover of a licensed character, this is the wrong shop, and the reasons are further down the page.

A character drawn for a screen and a character drawn for a metre and a half of fabric are not the same picture. A few things decide whether it lands.

The pose has to fill a 3 to 1 frame

150 by 50 cm is tall and narrow. A standing figure fits naturally. A seated or curled pose leaves large empty areas at the top and bottom, which either get filled with background or cropped away. Neither is wrong, but decide it before the artist starts rather than after.

The face ends up near the top

On a pillow standing upright, the face sits at the top third, which is roughly where your own head goes when you lie against it. Keep it at least 3 cm inside the edge so the seam never crosses it.

Two poses or one

Both sides print at no extra cost, so the usual choice is two poses of the same character, front and back. If you only have one piece of art, using it twice is completely normal and costs the same.

Simple backgrounds age better

A flat colour or a soft gradient behind the character keeps attention on her and enlarges cleanly. Busy detailed backgrounds compete with the figure at this size and are the most common regret people report after the fact.

Stated plainly, because this is the category where people most often find out after paying.

Characters have to be yours

Original characters, art you commissioned and own, and your own drawings are all fine. Characters owned by a studio, publisher or game company are not, and that includes fan art of them. The character is the protected thing, not the drawing, so a completely original illustration of somebody else's character is still a no.

Nothing explicit

We do not print sexually explicit artwork. This is a family business printing pet pillows and photographs of grandparents, and the same presses do all of it.

Nothing that sexualises a character who looks like a child

Regardless of an age written in a profile somewhere. If a design reads that way it is declined, and we would rather say so here than after you have ordered.

If you are not sure where a piece falls, send it before you order. An answer takes a few minutes and costs nothing.

Two fabrics, and for this kind of artwork the answer is less balanced than usual.

2 way tricot, most of the time

Flat cel shaded colour is exactly what tricot is good at. The surface is tighter, so line work stays sharp, and colours sit brighter than they do on a matte cloth. Put a piece of anime style art on both fabrics side by side and most people pick tricot without being told which is which.

Peach skin if you are going to sleep on it

Softer, matte, breathable, and much more forgiving about marks. If the pillow is going to be used every night rather than displayed, comfort beats saturation. It also hides the small creases that any cover picks up in daily use.

The stretch is a real trade off

Tricot stretches in both directions. Pulled tight over a firm insert, the print shifts slightly, and on a full body character that shift lands across the middle of the design. It is minor, but it is the one complaint that comes up about the fabric, and it is worth knowing before you choose.

People with an original character

Someone who has designed a character over months or years, has commissioned art of her, and wants one physical object rather than another file. This is the order that arrives with the best reference material and the clearest idea of the pose.

Artists printing their own work

Illustrators who draw this style and want a copy for themselves, or a few to sell at a convention. Print on demand means no minimum and no leftover stock if a design does not move.

Gift buyers

Usually a friend or a partner, usually a joke that is also slightly sincere. Commissioning a character to a brief and printing it once is a gift nobody can accidentally duplicate.

Couples, with a photograph

Not a waifu in the usual sense, but the same product. A full length photo of a partner who lives in another country, printed at close to life size, is a steady share of what goes through here.

No minimum, no setup fee, and nothing waiting for a batch to fill. One piece costs the same per unit as twenty.

• Upload the largest version of your artwork, PNG, JPG, PSD or TIFF
• Choose the fabric and whether you need the insert as well as the cover
• Check the free preview of both sides, and ask for changes if the crop is wrong
• About three days to print and sew, then four to eight business days tracked shipping

If the file is too small

The preview tells you before you pay rather than after. A web sized export usually looks fine on a phone and soft at 150 cm, and the fix is almost always to export again from the original working file.

If what arrives is not what you approved

We reprint it. Approving both sides before anything goes to the printer is exactly why that is rare.

• Anime body pillows, the same product covering male and female characters, with the art guidance in full
• Dakimakura explained, sizes, inserts, care and how the format works
• Custom dakimakura printing, resolution, bleed and file formats
• Custom body pillows, if you are printing a photograph instead of artwork