A lot of players want a visual representation of their character when playing DnD. This is understandable, as it can not only give a character a face to the representation in your mind, but it can also make the playing experience a lot more immersive.
So, how do you design your DnD character? What are the best places to go to? Let’s go over it below.
Reroll is one of the best sites to design your character. It offers complete character sheets with complementary, really cool, pixel art. It’s one of the few apps that have both elements in the same program. You have a lot of alternatives to choose from, including 14 different races, a lot of different armor sets and weapons, and so forth.
Reroll is one of the most popular character generator tools, for sure, but if you prefer other types of art or if you for some other reason don’t want to use the app, let’s go over some other useful tools for generating your character.
Where Can I Design My DnD Character?
There are a lot of tools that you can use to get a visual representation of your DnD character. That’s really good because this means that you probably can find the best tool for you. This way, you can get more immersed in the game.
It might be good to share these tools with your DM, too, because he/she’s the one describing events. If the DM has a better understanding of your character he/she might do a better job of narrating around your character.
So, let’s list a few of the most popular visual design tools.
- HeroMachine – This is an OG character visualization tool. However, it runs with flash. This means that you can’t use it in your browser anymore. You can, however, download the program and use it locally on your computer.
- Eldritch Foundry / Hero Forge – These two are similar. Both are paid services, too. With these tools, you can design and order your own miniature. In my opinion, miniatures are nicer than a picture since you can position them differently on the table. Both tools offer a wide array of options for your character designs.
- Artbreeder – Artbreeder is a website where you can design pictures by describing them in text. The art is completely AI-generated, but there are plenty of examples of really cool fantasy art on the website.
- Charactercreator.org – Another website, this one is designed to let you create a character. The options and art are a bit basic but it works depending on how needy you are. I prefer other options than this one, but I know that some players like the website.
Another option is to commission an artist to paint your character or party for you. I will discuss this later in the resource.
Which DnD Software is the Best for Design?
Is there one of these that’s objectively better than another? Not really, quite frankly. Art in general comes down almost entirely to preference. However, some of the tools listed above are more practical than others, and they have different art styles.
For example, as I mentioned earlier, Charactercreator.org is very basic in its design, but this might be fitting for some people that want a general idea of how their character looks like.
It’s also worth mentioning that the best art design often comes with a price. All the free tools are more likely to have some kind of deficiency in their design. For example, Hero Forge and Eldritch Foundry both have very good quality in their miniature designs, but they both cost money.
Amazon also has a wide variety of miniatures that you can choose from, but you can’t design them yourself there.
In summary, there isn’t really a software that’s better than another. Ultimately, it comes down to your situation and preferences.
How Much Does it Cost to Commission an Artist?
A popular option is to commission artists to paint DnD characters. A lot of people do this for their entire party, in fact. Artwork like this is most of the time really good, in my opinion. The DnD community has very dedicated and talented painters with a lot of creativity.
Commissioning artists to paint your character/party is the most expensive option out of them all, probably. Of course, this depends on the artist who you commission but in general, paintings like this will cost about 100 bucks or so.
It’s up to you to get the character visualization that you want when commissioning an artist. Software design tools always have restrictions one way or the other, but if you can formulate what you want well enough, an artist can give you exactly what you want.
For example, try to describe the nature of your character. If your character is harmonious, describe that to the artist. If the character’s evil, describe that. This way, the artist can visualize this using body language and facial expressions.
Make sure that you have an idea of what your character’s face looks like. The face is ultimately what makes a person unique. Finally, describe the clothing and gear that your character has equipped.