Search for "D&D poster" and you'll find the same things everywhere: licensed dragon artwork, the red wizard from the Player's Handbook cover, maybe a map of Faerûn. All fine. All hanging in ten thousand other gaming rooms.
The poster nobody else can hang is the one of your character — the warlock you played for three years, the paladin who died holding the line. This guide covers how to get from character to printed poster, and the practical decisions along the way: size, paper, framing, and where to put it.
Your character vs. licensed art
Licensed posters are wall decoration. A poster of your own character is campaign memorabilia — closer to a photo of a friend than to merch. The difference shows in how people treat them: licensed prints get replaced when taste changes; character prints move house with people.
Getting the artwork used to be the hard part. Commissioning a poster-quality piece runs $80–$500+ and weeks of waiting (). Today you can by describing the character, iterating until it's right, and sending it straight to print — the covers that whole journey if you're starting from scratch.
One thing that matters more for posters than any other use: resolution. A 1024-pixel image that looks great on screen prints muddy at 50×70 cm. Loreprint generates at full print resolution (about 4 megapixels at poster ratio), so the file behind the poster is never the bottleneck.
Choosing a size
Poster sizes follow standard framing dimensions, which keeps framing cheap. The realistic options:
- 13×18 / 21×30 cm (A4-ish) — desk, shelf, or beside the monitor. Good for "every character I've ever played" walls where you want many small frames.
- 30×40 cm — the sweet spot for most rooms. Big enough to read across the room, small enough to hang in groups. If in doubt, start here.
- 50×70 cm — a statement piece. One character, one wall. This is the size where paper quality starts being visible.
- 70×100 cm — full centerpiece, best above a sofa, bed, or the gaming table itself. Frame it; unframed prints this size are hard to keep flat.
A practical rule: measure the wall space and subtract 10 cm each side for the frame and breathing room. Most people buy one size too small.
Paper types, honestly explained
Paper is where poster shops get vague. There are really three decisions: coating, weight, and archival quality.
Matte (uncoated) absorbs light — no glare from any angle. Character art in painterly styles (oil painting, watercolor) looks closest to traditional art on matte paper. It's also the right choice for rooms with windows or lamps opposite the wall, and for framing behind glass. See the for the standard version.
Semi-glossy (silk-coated) reflects a little light and makes colors noticeably more vivid. Dramatic lighting — fire spells, glowing runes, torchlit dungeons — pops harder on a semi-gloss surface. The is the affordable version; the steps up to heavier 200 gsm stock that hangs flatter and feels substantial in hand.
Weight (gsm) is thickness. 170 gsm is standard poster weight; 200 gsm ( or premium semi-glossy) resists curling and feels closer to art-print quality. If the poster will hang unframed, the weight upgrade is worth more than any coating decision.
Archival (museum-quality) paper is acid-free stock that won't yellow over decades. For a memorial piece or an end-of-campaign gift meant to outlast the group itself, the at 250 gsm with a warm off-white base is the definitive option.
Quick recommendation table: vivid magical scenes → semi-glossy; painterly portraits → matte; unframed → premium weight; forever pieces → museum-quality.
Framing
Three honest tips from many prints hung:
- Standard sizes exist for a reason. Stick to 30×40, 50×70, 70×100 and frames cost a fraction of custom framing.
- Matte paper behind glass, semi-glossy with care. Glass in front of a semi-gloss print doubles the reflections; use it in rooms with controlled light, or choose matte for glassed frames.
- Dark frames for dark fantasy, light wood for watercolor and anime styles. The frame should agree with the art's mood — a black metal frame around a soft watercolor halfling fights itself.
Where to hang it
The classic spots, in rough order of impact: directly above or behind the gaming table (the party watches over the party), a stairwell or hallway gallery of every character the group has played, and the home office where a 30×40 of your bard supervises your video calls.
For a full room treatment — shelving, lighting, maps, and where posters fit into all of it — we wrote a separate guide to .
The gift angle
A poster of someone else's character is one of the strongest gifts in the hobby — it says you paid attention to a thing they love. It regularly tops our ; the short version is that a 30×40 semi-glossy print of a friend's long-running character, framed, lands harder than anything else at the same price.
From character to wall
The path is short now: , pick a style, iterate until the portrait is right, choose a , and it arrives ready to hang. The hardest part is deciding which character deserves the wall — though that's what 30×40 gallery walls are for.