Quote Originally Posted by DiBastet View Post
This

http://diegobastet.deviantart.com/ga...18469#/d2euykt

We are blessed with two artists in our group, so one draw the chars in a pose, front and back, in a chibbi cute way and then we paint them on PS (or GIMP, keeping with the theme of frugal), we size them in a program like Inkscape so their bases are D&D sized and arrange them in the right way so we print it on couche paper, cut it, put a transparent kind of tape over it, arrange the figure and put it on a base (we use simple 5 cents erasers...).

It's cute and simple to do. Also it's totally customized. Hah.
That's really cool. I like physical minis myself, but tokens and paper art are great in a bind. I could see doing what you suggested for something between actual, permanent mini and just papercraft.