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.

10 palettes

Muted Storybook

12 colors

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

MagicPixel

  • muted
  • cozy
  • general

PC-98 Sampler

16 colors

The lilac-and-rose 16 that Japanese PC-98 art is remembered for: soft, painterly, unmistakable.

NEC (hardware)

  • retro
  • 16-color
  • pastel

Sharp X68000 Sampler

16 colors

A 16-color slice in the X68000 arcade-port idiom: deep blues, hot reds, crisp highlights.

Sharp (hardware)

  • retro
  • 16-color
  • illustration

Circus Tent

12 colors

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

MagicPixel

  • town
  • vibrant
  • bright

Duotone Red & Blue

8 colors

Two opposing three-step ramps plus a shared light: hard-edged, poster-like sprites.

MagicPixel

  • low-color
  • high-contrast
  • illustration

Duotone Teal & Orange

8 colors

The film-grade complementary pair, ramped for pixel art without muddying the mids.

MagicPixel

  • low-color
  • high-contrast
  • illustration

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

Monochrome Rose

6 colors

One rose hue in six values: dusk scenes, romance UI, and soft single-tone art.

MagicPixel

  • monochrome
  • pink
  • low-color

Polaroid Fade

7 colors

Faded photo neutrals for nostalgic scenes and aged UI frames.

MagicPixel

  • retro
  • muted
  • warm

UI Warm Paper

7 colors

Warm light-mode neutrals for readable panels and printed styling.

MagicPixel

  • ui
  • warm
  • muted

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.