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.

23 palettes

Fire & Embers

8 colors

A dedicated flame ramp for torches, explosions, and ember particles.

MagicPixel

  • fire
  • warm
  • effects

Smoke & Fog

8 colors

Neutral gray steps tuned for smoke puffs, dust clouds, and fog layers.

MagicPixel

  • effects
  • vfx
  • grayscale

Wizard Robes

10 colors

Arcane purples with gold trim: robes, spell circles, and enchanted cloth.

MagicPixel

  • characters
  • fantasy
  • purple

Spellbook Arcane

10 colors

Glowing arcane violets for spell effects, runes, and magic-circle vfx.

MagicPixel

  • effects
  • fantasy
  • purple

Fairy Glade

10 colors

Moonlit greens with two fae pinks for enchanted clearings and glow motes.

MagicPixel

  • fantasy
  • nature
  • pastel

Gore & Guts

8 colors

A deep red ramp for wounds, splatter frames, and horror-game vfx.

MagicPixel

  • horror
  • red
  • effects

Reactor Core

10 colors

Radioactive green glow against neutral machine gray: reactors, vats, and hazard lighting.

MagicPixel

  • sci-fi
  • industrial
  • green

Hologram

8 colors

One clean cyan ramp for holograms, scan lines, projected UI, and glow passes.

MagicPixel

  • sci-fi
  • ui
  • cool

Slime & Ooze

8 colors

A translucent green ramp with a bright rim value so blobs read as gel, not stone.

MagicPixel

  • monsters
  • green
  • effects

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

Poison VFX

9 colors

Toxic greens with a violet secondary so poison never reads as plain foliage.

MagicPixel

  • effects
  • vfx
  • green

Healing VFX

9 colors

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

MagicPixel

  • effects
  • vfx
  • green

Ice VFX

8 colors

Frost blues to white for freeze effects, ice shards, and cold-damage frames.

MagicPixel

  • effects
  • vfx
  • ice

Shadow VFX

8 colors

A single violet-black ramp for dark magic, void portals, and shadow trails.

MagicPixel

  • effects
  • vfx
  • purple

Ion Drive

7 colors

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

MagicPixel

  • sci-fi
  • blue
  • effects

Plasma Cutter

7 colors

Hot cutting-arc ramp from violet core to spitting sparks.

MagicPixel

  • sci-fi
  • vfx
  • effects

Rune Frost

7 colors

Frozen glyph blues for ice magic, wards and enchanted steel.

MagicPixel

  • fantasy
  • ice
  • cool

Arcade Carpet

7 colors

Loud pattern colors for arcades, party stages and toy packaging.

MagicPixel

  • retro
  • vibrant
  • city

Wind VFX

7 colors

Low-contrast streak tones for gusts, dust trails and slashes.

MagicPixel

  • vfx
  • effects
  • cool

Arcane VFX

7 colors

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

MagicPixel

  • vfx
  • effects
  • purple

Sound Wave VFX

7 colors

Ringing blue ramp for sonar pings, shouts and shockwave rings.

MagicPixel

  • vfx
  • effects
  • blue

Acid Burn VFX

7 colors

Caustic greens for corrosion, sludge splashes and toxic pools.

MagicPixel

  • vfx
  • effects
  • green

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.