MagicPixel

Pixel art color palettes

Free palettes with every hex code listed: hardware classics like Game Boy, PICO-8 and NES, plus ramps built for dungeons, characters and tilesets. 256 palettes, one click to save any of them.

Every retro color palette here lists its full hex codes. Copy them straight off any palette page, or add a palette to your account and it shows up in the pixel art editor color sidebar, ready to draw with or to snap an existing sprite onto. Already have favourites from Aseprite or another editor? MagicPixel also imports .gpl, .pal and .hex palette files. New to working inside a limited set? Start with the color palette guide.

Chasing that 8-bit and 16-bit look? pulled straight from the consoles and computers that defined them.

Popular palettes: Game Boy DMG, PICO-8, NES, Commodore 64, CGA 16, ZX Spectrum.

16 palettes

ZX Spectrum

15 colors

Sinclair's bright/dark pairs: pure hues at two intensities and nothing in between.

Sinclair (hardware)

  • console
  • retro
  • high-contrast

Spring Meadow

10 colors

Fresh grass greens plus two blossom pinks for cheerful overworld tiles.

MagicPixel

  • nature
  • green
  • bright

Pastel 16

16 colors

Soft, low-contrast pastels for cute characters, UI, and casual art.

MagicPixel

  • pastel
  • bright
  • cute

Teletext

8 colors

The eight pure teletext colors: black, white, and full-blast RGB corners. Brutally readable.

Broadcast standard (hardware)

  • retro
  • high-contrast
  • bright

Thomson MO5

16 colors

France’s school-computer palette: saturated primaries with a handful of pastel softeners.

Thomson (hardware)

  • retro
  • 16-color
  • bright

Circus Tent

12 colors

Big-top reds, golds, and blues at full saturation: fairgrounds and carnival props.

MagicPixel

  • town
  • vibrant
  • bright

Fruit Stand

12 colors

Twelve ripe hues for produce, pickups, and inventory icons that must read at 16px.

MagicPixel

  • items
  • vibrant
  • bright

Pastel Candy

10 colors

Soft candy hues at two values each, with one dark for outlines that keeps everything readable.

MagicPixel

  • items
  • pastel
  • cute

Explosion VFX

10 colors

A hot-core to smoke ramp ordered for frame-by-frame blast animation.

MagicPixel

  • effects
  • vfx
  • fire

Lightning VFX

8 colors

Cool arc values with a white core and a warm afterglow for electric attacks.

MagicPixel

  • effects
  • vfx
  • blue

Healing VFX

9 colors

Soft restorative greens rising to white, with a gold sparkle value.

MagicPixel

  • effects
  • vfx
  • green

Terraced Hills

7 colors

Stepped farmland greens that read clearly at small tile sizes.

MagicPixel

  • environment
  • nature
  • green

Ion Drive

7 colors

Cold thruster blues for engine glow, shields and energy trails.

MagicPixel

  • sci-fi
  • blue
  • effects

Holy Order

7 colors

Gilded vestment tones for temple knights and blessed relics.

MagicPixel

  • fantasy
  • gold
  • armor

Mermaid Scale

7 colors

Iridescent aquatic greens for scales, fins and underwater folk.

MagicPixel

  • fantasy
  • water
  • green

Arcane VFX

7 colors

Spell-glow violets for casting circles, sigils and impacts.

MagicPixel

  • vfx
  • effects
  • purple

Sign in to save palettes to your account. Browsing and copying hex codes is free.

Provenance and licensing. Hardware and system palettes here (Game Boy, PICO-8, CGA, C64, ZX Spectrum, NES and friends) are factual color sets from the machines themselves, credited on each card. Community palettes are included only when released CC0, credited to their authors. Every other palette is authored by MagicPixel. All of them are free to use in your projects, commercial work included, and color values themselves are not copyrightable.

Pixel art color palettes, explained

What is a pixel art color palette?
A pixel art color palette is a fixed, deliberately small set of colors you commit to for a sprite, a tileset, or a whole game. Limiting yourself forces clearer values and keeps every asset looking like it belongs to the same world, which is why hardware palettes like the Game Boy’s four greens still produce such readable art.
How many colors should a palette have?
For a single 16×16 or 32×32 sprite, 4 to 16 colors is plenty: one dark, one mid, one light per material, plus an outline. Reach for 32 or more only when a scene needs many materials at once. Fewer colors read better at small sizes and are far faster to shade consistently.
How do I use these palettes in MagicPixel?
Browsing and copying hex codes is free, and saving a palette takes a free account. Add a palette to your account here, then open the editor and it appears in the palette picker in the color sidebar. You can also snap an existing artboard to it from the palette button beside the canvas, which remaps every pixel to the nearest color in the set.
Can I import my own palette file?
Yes. The editor imports .gpl (GIMP / Aseprite), .pal (JASC and RIFF), and .hex files, so any palette file you download from a community site or export from another tool can be loaded as a custom palette.
How do I copy the hex codes?
Every palette has its own page listing each hex code. Click a single swatch to copy that one value, or use the copy button to grab the whole palette as a newline separated list you can paste into Aseprite, GIMP, Godot, Unity, or a CSS file.
Are these palettes free to use commercially?
Yes. Hardware and community palettes listed here are factual color sets or CC0 releases, and the MagicPixel-authored palettes are free to use in any project, commercial or otherwise. Colors themselves are not copyrightable.