How to Make D&D Tokens for Foundry VTT and Roll20 (Sizes, Borders, Formats)

A battle map without tokens is just a piece of art. The token is what turns a grid square into a character, a goblin, or a boss with three health bars. Get the size wrong and your paladin looks like a coin next to a boulder. Get the format wrong and Roll20 renders a blank box where your dragon should be. This guide covers the pixel math, the file formats, and the actual click paths for Foundry VTT and Roll20.

What a token actually is

A token is a small image, usually circular or square, that sits on top of a grid square and represents one creature. Most virtual tabletops separate the token image from the character's full portrait: the portrait is the large picture you see in a character sheet or chat card, and the token is the cropped, simplified version that has to read clearly at a distance and at a small size.

Because a token gets shrunk down to fit a single grid cell, detail that looks great in a full portrait can turn into mud. A face that fills most of the frame, with a plain or lightly detailed background, reads far better than a full body illustration crammed into a circle.

Token sizes by virtual tabletop

Every VTT measures its grid in pixels, and that number decides how large your token art needs to be before it looks soft or pixelated when a player zooms in.

Virtual tabletop	Grid size	Recommended token resolution	Default token shape
Foundry VTT	100 pixels per square by default, configurable per scene	256 to 512 pixels square	Circle mask on a square image
Roll20	70 pixels per square, fixed	280 pixels square, four times the platform's grid, the Roll20 Marketplace standard	Square image, circular by community convention
Fantasy Grounds	50 pixels per square is the standard convention	200 pixels square	Circle token frame
Owlbear Rodeo	No fixed default, you drag the grid to fit the map	280 to 400 pixels square, since maps often scale for 4K displays	Circle

Foundry's default grid is 100 pixels per square, and it lets you change that value per scene. A token image at 256x256 or 512x512 pixels gives Foundry enough resolution to scale a token up for a large or huge creature without turning soft. Source: Foundry's Scenes documentation.

Roll20's grid is 70 pixels per square and always has been. Roll20's own guidance recommends creating token art at four times that size, 280 pixels, so the token stays sharp when a player zooms in past 100 percent. Source: Roll20 Help Center and the Roll20 community forums.

Fantasy Grounds doesn't enforce a pixel size the way Roll20 does, but the community convention that keeps maps consistent and file sizes reasonable is 50 pixels per 5 foot square.

Owlbear Rodeo has no single fixed grid value: you import a map and drag the grid overlay to match it, so a 4K map might end up with well over 100 pixels per square while a smaller map sits lower. Build your token art generously and let Owlbear scale it down rather than the other way around.

Circular, square, or hex

Most fantasy VTT play uses circular tokens, since a circle reads well from any rotation and doesn't imply a facing direction unless you add one. Square tokens are common for vehicles or large structures where a circle would waste space. Hex tokens matter almost exclusively if your table plays on a hex grid rather than a square grid, which is uncommon for D&D but standard for some other systems.

Whatever shape you land on, keep the important part of the art, the face or the weapon silhouette, inside the middle 80 percent of the frame. A circular mask crops the corners of a square image, and anything near the edge gets cut off.

Transparent PNG or WebP

Tokens need transparency around the character so they sit on the map without a colored square behind them. PNG is the safe universal choice: every VTT reads it, and it supports full 8 bit alpha transparency for clean edges. WebP is smaller at the same quality and Foundry, Roll20, and most modern tools accept it, but a few older modules and offline tools still choke on it. If you're publishing tokens for other people to download, PNG is the format least likely to cause a support question.

Never use a flat color background and call it transparent by matching the map color. That trick breaks the moment someone drags the token onto a different map, and it leaves a visible fringe around curved edges.

Borders and readability at table scale

A thin colored border, roughly 2 to 4 pixels at 280 pixel resolution, around a token helps players tell friend from foe at a glance, especially on a busy map. Common conventions: a red or dark border for enemies, blue or green for allies, gold or white for the party's own characters. Keep the border simple. A thick, multicolored, or glowing ring competes with the token art itself and gets harder to read, not easier, once ten tokens are packed onto one map.

Leave a small transparent margin between the character art and the token's outer edge too. Without it, a shield or weapon can poke past the circular crop and get clipped in an ugly way.

Three ways to make a token

From a portrait

If you already have a character portrait, the fastest path is to crop the face and shoulders into a square, then apply a circular mask. Keep the crop tight enough that the face fills most of the frame; a portrait shot from the waist up will look like a smudge once it shrinks to 70 or 100 pixels on the table.

From a text prompt

Describing a character in words and generating art directly as a token is usually faster than generating a full portrait and cropping it yourself, especially for a whole party or a monster roster. Sprixen's free D&D token maker takes a short description, generates the art, and returns it already cropped and masked at token resolution with a transparent background, ready to drop straight into Foundry or Roll20 without touching an image editor.

From a photo

Some tables like to use a real photo, miniature, or a hand drawn sketch as the base image. Crop it the same way as a portrait: tight on the face, square aspect ratio, then mask into a circle. If the background isn't already plain, remove it before masking so you don't end up with a rectangle of wall or table visible behind a round token.

Batch workflow for a whole party or bestiary

Making tokens one at a time works for a single boss, but a five person party or a full bestiary chapter needs a repeatable process. Generate or gather every portrait first, then run the crop and mask step as a batch rather than switching tools between each character. If you're using a generator, keep the art style and lighting description consistent across the batch, the same style phrase in every prompt, so the tokens look like they belong to the same campaign instead of six different artists.

Naming and folder conventions

A folder full of files named token1.png, token2.png, and finalfinal.png becomes unmanageable fast. A simple convention that scales: [category]_[name]_token.png, for example pc_thalia_token.png or monster_goblinscout_token.png. Keep portraits and tokens in separate subfolders so a search for "token" doesn't also return every full illustration in your campaign.

Importing into Foundry VTT

1. Open the Actor you want to give a token, either a player character or an NPC.
2. Go to the Actor sheet's Prototype Token tab, the tab with a small token icon.
3. Click the image field and upload your token PNG.
4. Set the token's size, 1x1 for a Medium creature, larger for Large, Huge, or Gargantuan.
5. Save the Actor. Any time you drag that Actor onto a scene, Foundry uses this prototype token image automatically.

Importing into Roll20

1. Open your game and go to the Journal or the Art Library.
2. Upload the token image, or drag it directly onto the Tabletop tab.
3. Right click the token on the map and choose Edit Character Sheet to link it to a character, or use it as a loose token for a single NPC.
4. Resize using the token's corner handles so it fills roughly one grid square for a Medium creature.

For maps to put those tokens on, see the companion guide on battle map size and grid conventions, and if you want matching character art before you crop it into a token, read how to write AI prompts for D&D character art that actually holds up at token size. For a broader look at token tools beyond a single generator, see the best D&D token makers comparison.

FAQ

What size should a D&D token be in pixels?

For Foundry VTT, 256 to 512 pixels square works well against the default 100 pixel grid. For Roll20, aim for 280 pixels square, four times the platform's fixed 70 pixel grid. Bigger is safer than smaller, since every VTT can scale a large image down cleanly, but scaling a small image up makes it blurry.

Do D&D tokens need to be circular?

No. Circular is the most common convention because it reads well from any angle and most VTTs mask tokens into a circle by default, but square tokens are common for vehicles, structures, and hex grid games. Use whatever shape your table's system expects.

Can I use a free D&D token maker for commercial content?

That depends entirely on the specific tool's license terms, which vary. Read the terms of service for whichever generator you use before selling maps, modules, or adventures that include its output.

What file format should D&D tokens use?

PNG with an 8 bit alpha channel is the safest choice across Foundry, Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, and Owlbear Rodeo. WebP works in most modern tools and produces smaller files, but PNG has the broadest compatibility if you're sharing tokens with other people.

How do I make tokens for a whole D&D party quickly?

Generate or gather all the portraits first using a consistent style description, then crop and mask them into tokens as one batch rather than switching between tools per character. A dedicated token maker that outputs pre-cropped, transparent tokens saves the most time here, since it skips the manual masking step entirely.