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Paper Minis

Jan 27, 2026, 3 min read

A library and a tool to create great looking paper miniatures for DnD and other tabletop RPGs.

How it started

I love playing Dungeons and Dragons and used to host sessions regularly back home, however about a year ago I moved to another continent and had to leave all the maps, minis and books behind with my friends who still play. After the dust settled I started missing the DnD games and decided to host a one shot with some of the great people I’ve met in the past months. It was around the same time that custom GPTs were announced and I wondered if DALLE-3 got good enough to generate and print miniatures for the game. Spoiler alert: it did!

The prototype

Long story short - after some tinkering with a custom GPT, some editing and arts and crafts -here’s what I got for the first session.

There is definitely a lot to improve but the one shot went great and I definitely enjoyed the hell out of the process. Shoutout to Caleb Hutchins for the awesome one shot about the iron golem (the most fun NPC to run).

Let’s see if this has the potential to become a small business.

The Action plan

  1. Create a concept
  2. Test the MVP
  3. Iterate and improve
  4. ???
  5. Profit (or Pivot)

The Concept

The next step is to try and turn this idea into a product and scrutinize the idea to really see if it has potential to bring value to people. Here is where my product management skill will come in handy.

Here are the usual steps I use to turn an idea into a concept. When you go through these steps most ideas will start cracking and will fail to become viable concepts.

TL;DR

  1. High-Level Goal: Define your business’s main objective.
  2. User Persona: Know who you’re building for, their needs, and the scale of your audience.
    • Focus on a user you understand well, potentially yourself.
    • Estimate audience size.
  3. Value Proposition: Identify the single specific problem you’re solving.
  4. Competitor Analysis: Understand current solutions and seek to offer significant improvements.
    • Remember, sometimes the main competition is as simple as pen and paper.
  5. Acquisition Channel: Plan how you’ll introduce your product to users.
  6. MVP: Determine the shortest path to delivering your value proposition.
  7. Success Metrics: Establish clear criteria for success before launch.

Let’s apply these steps to “Paper minis” and see where it takes us. And here is the result

Concept - Paper minis

Death

The project is dead. Given the strong existing competition and the advancement of AI image generators, this process becomes really simple, and there is little value I can provide beyond some prompts and a Photoshop template.

I still use these in my games, and it is a quick and easy way to improve the DnD experience.

Here is an example prompt for the free version of Gemini (At least as of January 2026):

Create a full-body, print-ready image of a bald Goliath barbarian:

Single character, standing pose
Muscular Goliath build, bald head
Barbarian attire (fur, leather, simple weapons)
Colorful 2D flat style, moderate-to-low detail
Bold outline for easy cutting
Portrait orientation on a solid white background

Here is the result:

Pro tip - you can change poses for the same character with a simple prompt:

make another one with a fighting pose

Result:

Upload it to https://papermini.arkanatools.com/ to generate a simple printable PDF. Or make it yourself if you are feeling fancy.

Have fun and support other creators, as they often have much better art:

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