This document provides instructions for designing dakimakura (body pillows), which are popular in the anime community. It outlines the design process, including brainstorming ideas, drawing drafts, getting feedback, adding line art and color. Tips are given such as using references when drawing difficult elements and employing complementary colors for shading. The overall process involves moving from draft to line art to color to finished product. Examples are given from the designer's own dakimakura depicting a sleeping schoolgirl character.

1. DAKIMAKURA
DESIGN
by Aroanna Ramos

2. Hello! I’m Aro
and I’m here
to teach you
how to design
body pillows!

3. INTRODUCTION
what you should know

4. What is a
Body Pillow?
● known as “dakimakura
(抱き枕)” in Japanese,
which translates to
“hug (抱き) pillow (枕)”
● usually depicts an anime
character lying down
on a bed
● normally made in
two sizes:
150 x 50 cm or 160 x 50 cm

5. Dakimakuras are very popular in the anime community.

6. If they’re
popular, then
you can
sell them
to anime fans!

7. But in order
to sell
body pillows,
you must first
design them!

8. THE DESIGN
PROCESS
how I did it

9. As an example for
the design process,
I will show you
the progress of
my own dakimakura
that I made for my
high school!

10. First step is
brainstorming!
Answer the following:
● Who will be your target
audience?
● What character would be
popular with your target?
● What kind of pose would
fit your purpose?
● What kinds of clothes and
props would help?
remember: the more questions you can answer, the better the planning

11. My own brainstorming looked
like this:
● My target audience are
high school students in
my high school.
● The character will be a
generic female student.
● She has fallen asleep
after studying.
● She’ll be dressed in the
uniform, with a book and
glasses scattered around.
you can detail it further if you want to!

12. Once you’re done
brainstorming, you can
draw the first draft!
Show the following in the draft:
● the pose and general flow of things
● guidelines and other parameters
● the locations of props respective to
your character
of course, you can make it more or less detailed depending on your drawing process

13. Clean and detail the draft
until it looks like what
you intend the final
product to look like.
In my case, I made sure to draw in my next
drafts:
● the hair and face
● the clothes, including socks
● the props
it is highly suggested that you make the final draft as detailed as possible

14. After cleaning up the
draft, you should ask
others for their
critique. That way,
you can correct any
mistakes before
drawing the line art.
actually i messed up here because i only
asked for critique after i drew the line
art

15. After getting critique and
correcting any mistakes,
start drawing the lines.
Make sure your lines are:
● clean and neat
● engaging and lively
● not stiff and awkward

16. If you ask for critique after
you’ve done the line art, then
you’ll have difficulty editing
it afterwards.
For example, my mistakes were the:
● awkward looking hair and skirt
● glasses (if they were tossed aside, then
they wouldn’t be in that position)
● awkward phone (because I only added it
during the lineart phase)
I will elaborate on how to prevent mistakes like mine later.

17. I was able to correct
some of my mistakes,
such as the phone and
the glasses, but I
couldn’t correct the
more drastic errors,
such as the hair and
the skirt.

18. After lineart, you can start
coloring your design.
Your colors should:
● have a good balance on saturation
(colorful vs. dull) and brightness
(light vs. dark)
● should not have great contrast unless
you are intentionally drawing an
eye-burner

19. Of course, add shading and lighting!
I’ll give a tip for this later.

20. The finishing touch: shade the background so that it looks
like your character is on a bed!

21. By now, the final product is
polished and ready to be printed.

22. To summarize, it goes like this:
idea (not shown) > draft > line art > color > effects

23. TIPS AND TRICKS
some helpful techniques that you can apply to design

24. USE REFERENCES
Use photos and other drawings
to study difficult aspects.
study the
anatomy and
posture of a
person
study the way
clothes drape
around the body
study how
wrinkles work
study hands

25. No matter what
anyone says,
using references
is not cheating.
My biggest mistakes in designing the body pillow happened
because I didn’t rely on references as much as I should have.

26. SHADING
Use complementary colors to add depth
to your lighting and shading!
red light/green shadow
yellow light/violet shadow
blue light/orange shadow

27. SHADING
You can also switch the colors
in each pair for a different effect.
red/green
yellow/violet
blue/orange

28. DAKIMAKURA-SPECIFIC TIPS
● the pose of the character
should look natural and
comfortable
● when shading the background,
make sure that the shading
does not reach the edge
○ when it’s printed, the shading
will look unnatural if it’s
suddenly cut off

29. Thanks for
listening! Now
go forth and
make more
dakimakuras!

30. Bibliography
● Galbraith, P. W. (2009). The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider's Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan.
Tokyo: Kodansha International.
Image Sources
● body pillowcases (https://www.flickr.com/photos/istolethetv/4669055578/in/photostream/)
● people holding body pillows photo by Dick Thomas Johnson
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/31029865@N06/22414818042)
● cropped skirt photo by Maxime Lelièvre on Unsplash
● posture photo by Pete Bellis on Unsplash
● cropped wrinkle photo by Krista Mangulsone on Unsplash
● cropped hands photo by Jeremy Yap on Unsplash
I made all other graphics.