How to Make a Discord Profile Picture With AI

A Discord profile picture has a hard job. It's a circle, it's usually small, and it sits next to dozens of other circles in a member list. An AI avatar can look great as a big square and turn into a blur of hair and sweater at chat size. Here's how to make one that doesn't.

What size should a Discord profile picture be?

Make it square and at least 128 × 128 pixels; 256 or 512 pixels gives Discord room to show it sharply on high-resolution screens. Discord's own help says you can upload your own image as your avatar (PNG and GIF are the types it names, and animated GIFs need Nitro). It crops the picture to a circle when it's shown, so anything in the corners disappears.

Every one of these is a small file. The 3D cartoon is the heaviest at every size because of its soft shading, and the chibi the lightest because of its flat colour. If an upload ever complains about size, a 512 crop is a third of the original or less.

How do you make an AI profile picture from your photo?

Use an AI avatar maker in photo mode. AI Avatar Maker is a browser tool that turns a description or your photo into an original stylized avatar with an idle and a talking frame, ready for a PNGTuber.

1. 1

   Pick a clear photo

   Face the camera, good light, nothing over your face. The tool keeps general traits like hair, colours, clothes and earrings, so wear what you want your avatar to wear.

2. 2

   Choose a style

   We tried three. Each frame took 17 to 21 seconds: anime 20.8 s, 3D cartoon 16.6 s, chibi 19.7 s.

3. 3

   Download the PNG

   You get a 1024 × 1024 picture of your avatar on a plain light grey background, plus a transparent cut-out.

4. 4

   Crop it around the head

   In any photo editor or your phone's crop tool, crop a square that holds the face and a little hair, then save a 512 × 512 copy. The next section shows why.

5. 5

   Upload it to Discord

   User Settings (the cog at the bottom left) → Profiles → Change Avatar, pick the file, adjust the circle, then Apply and Save Changes.

Should you crop the avatar before uploading it?

Yes, crop it to the head. The AI Avatar Maker frames head and upper body, which is right for a streaming avatar but wastes a profile picture: in a circle, the sweater and the grey background take most of the space, and the circle itself hides the four corners (about a fifth of any square). Shrink it to 40 pixels, about the size of a small avatar in a chat list, and the full frame becomes a face the size of a fingernail.

• Leave a little space above the hair. Discord lets you drag the image inside the circle, but it can't add space that isn't there.
• Keep the eyes just above the middle. That's where a round crop looks most natural.
• Bold styles survive shrinking best. When we shrank our three head crops to 40 pixels, the chibi's thick outlines and dark eyes read most clearly; the anime's fine line art and pale face read least.

Can you make a matching Discord banner?

Yes, if you have Nitro. Discord's help says only Nitro members can upload a profile banner, as a PNG, JPG or animated GIF under 10MB and at least 680 × 240 pixels. Use the avatar's transparent cut-out: put it on one side of a 680 × 240 canvas over a colour taken from your avatar, and keep the rest calm so the banner doesn't compete with your profile picture.

The same cut-outs also work as a PNGTuber, an avatar that talks when you do. PNGTuber Maker takes the idle and talking frames from AI Avatar Maker and animates them from your microphone, and with the Facecam extension it can be your camera in Discord in the browser.

Does the same picture work as a Zoom profile picture?

Yes. Zoom accepts JPG, GIF or PNG files under 2MB on its web portal (Profile → the pencil on your picture → upload, then adjust the crop and Save), and every one of our 512 head crops is well under that. Zoom shows it in places like the in-meeting chat, so the same head crop that works on Discord works there too.

What didn't we test?

We didn't sign in to Discord or Zoom, so we didn't upload our files or measure the exact sizes each app displays avatars at; the 40-pixel preview is our own rendering. We tried one photo and three of the tool's four styles (not pixel art). The AI drawing step needs a plan; cropping, exporting and making the banner are free with any editor.