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.

20 palettes

Endesga 32

32 colors

A do-everything 32-color set: full skin, foliage, metal, and sky ramps in one palette.

Endesga

  • general
  • vibrant
  • warm

Sweetie 16

16 colors

Sixteen balanced colors with clean dark-to-light ramps: a modern PICO-8 alternative.

GrafxKid

  • general
  • vibrant
  • high-contrast

Skin Tones 12

12 colors

A broad twelve-step skin ramp covering deep to light tones on one continuous curve.

MagicPixel

  • characters
  • skin
  • warm

Hair Colors 12

12 colors

Black, brown, blonde, ginger, and gray hair ramps compressed into one palette.

MagicPixel

  • characters
  • warm
  • general

Sushi Bar

12 colors

Rice whites, salmon oranges, and nori greens: tuned for tiny food sprites.

MagicPixel

  • items
  • vibrant
  • general

Warm Earth 16

16 colors

A dense warm ramp for terrain, wood, leather, and autumn scenes.

MagicPixel

  • warm
  • nature
  • general

Cool Ocean 16

16 colors

Blues and teals from abyss to foam, with two violet shadows for depth.

MagicPixel

  • cool
  • water
  • general

Pastel 16

16 colors

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

MagicPixel

  • pastel
  • bright
  • cute

Muted Storybook

12 colors

Desaturated storybook tones: quiet scenes that never fight the linework.

MagicPixel

  • muted
  • cozy
  • general

Four Color Warm

4 colors

A Game Boy-style four-tone set in warm tones: tight constraint, warm mood.

MagicPixel

  • low-color
  • warm
  • monochrome

Four Color Cool

4 colors

A four-tone cool set for moonlit, underwater, and winter constraint pieces.

MagicPixel

  • low-color
  • cool
  • monochrome

Six Color Jam

6 colors

A tiny six-color kit that still covers dark, light, warm, and cool: ideal for jams.

MagicPixel

  • low-color
  • general
  • starter

Twelve Color General

12 colors

A balanced twelve: full neutral ramp plus one clean hue per primary direction.

MagicPixel

  • general
  • vibrant
  • starter

Eyes & Accents

12 colors

Paired dark/light values for eye colors, gems, and small character accents.

MagicPixel

  • characters
  • accents
  • vibrant

UI Light Mode

10 colors

A light interface ramp with one action blue and one danger red: menus, HUDs, and dialogs.

MagicPixel

  • ui
  • accents
  • general

UI Status Colors

10 colors

Success, warning, danger, and info at two values each, over a neutral pair.

MagicPixel

  • ui
  • accents
  • accessible

Eight-Color Jam

8 colors

Four neutrals and four hues: a deliberately tiny working set for jam sprites.

MagicPixel

  • starter
  • general
  • low-color

Sixteen-Color Jam

16 colors

A balanced general-purpose 16: six neutrals, warm and cool ramps, one violet accent.

MagicPixel

  • starter
  • 16-color
  • general

Thirty-Two Color Studio

32 colors

A full studio 32: ten neutrals plus five-step ramps for red, gold, green, blue, and violet.

MagicPixel

  • 32-color
  • general
  • illustration

Accessible Eight

8 colors

Eight hues chosen to stay distinguishable for the common forms of color blindness.

MagicPixel

  • accessible
  • general
  • ui

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.