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.

22 palettes

Virtual Boy

4 colors

Four reds from the Virtual Boy's LED display: value studies with a headache.

Nintendo (hardware)

  • console
  • monochrome
  • red

1-Bit

2 colors

Pure black and white. No shading, only silhouette and pattern dithering.

MagicPixel

  • monochrome
  • grayscale
  • high-contrast

1-Bit Ink

2 colors

A softened two-tone pair: off-black ink on warm paper for comic-style pixel art.

MagicPixel

  • monochrome
  • low-color
  • high-contrast

Grayscale 4

4 colors

Four evenly spaced values: the fastest way to block out light before coloring.

MagicPixel

  • grayscale
  • monochrome
  • low-color

Grayscale 8

8 colors

An eight-step value ramp for shading practice and readable value structure.

MagicPixel

  • grayscale
  • monochrome

Grayscale 16

16 colors

A full sixteen-step gray ramp for gradients, smoke, and metal without any hue bias.

MagicPixel

  • grayscale
  • monochrome
  • 16-color

Sepia 8

8 colors

A single warm brown ramp: old photographs, parchment maps, and sepia flashbacks.

MagicPixel

  • monochrome
  • warm
  • retro

Retro CRT

8 colors

Phosphor greens for terminal screens, scanline overlays, and CRT UI.

MagicPixel

  • retro
  • green
  • monochrome

Retro CRT Amber

8 colors

The amber monitor variant: warm monochrome for old computers and consoles.

MagicPixel

  • retro
  • warm
  • monochrome

Monochrome Blue 6

6 colors

Six-step single-hue blue: perfect for one-color mockups and moonlight passes.

MagicPixel

  • monochrome
  • cool
  • low-color

Monochrome Purple 6

6 colors

A single violet ramp for magic passes, dusk overlays, and shadow studies.

MagicPixel

  • monochrome
  • purple
  • low-color

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

Shadow VFX

8 colors

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

MagicPixel

  • effects
  • vfx
  • purple

Obsidian

8 colors

A very dark neutral ramp that still shades: obsidian, void tiles, and night silhouettes.

MagicPixel

  • texture
  • dark
  • stone

Terminal Green

8 colors

Phosphor green from near-black to bloom: CRT terminals and hacking screens.

MagicPixel

  • terminal
  • retro
  • green

Terminal Blue

8 colors

A cold single-hue ramp for terminals, blueprints, and diagnostic overlays.

MagicPixel

  • terminal
  • retro
  • blue

Monochrome Green

6 colors

Six steps of one green: value studies, foliage passes, and single-hue mockups.

MagicPixel

  • monochrome
  • green
  • low-color

Monochrome Amber

6 colors

A warm amber ramp for lamplight studies, sepia scenes, and CRT-amber mockups.

MagicPixel

  • monochrome
  • warm
  • low-color

Monochrome Rose

6 colors

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

MagicPixel

  • monochrome
  • pink
  • low-color

Two-Bit Sepia

4 colors

Four aged-paper values: the Game Boy exercise in a warm, old-photograph key.

MagicPixel

  • low-color
  • monochrome
  • retro

Four-Color Noir

4 colors

A cool four-value set for high-contrast noir sprites and silhouette-first layouts.

MagicPixel

  • low-color
  • grayscale
  • cool

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.