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.

27 palettes

Stone & Brick

8 colors

Warm masonry tones for brick, sandstone, and mortar tiles.

MagicPixel

  • stone
  • warm
  • environment

Wood & Bark

8 colors

A single clean wood ramp for planks, crates, trunks, and furniture.

MagicPixel

  • nature
  • warm
  • texture

Water & Foam

8 colors

One tight water ramp ending in foam white: rivers, waves, and splash frames.

MagicPixel

  • water
  • cool
  • texture

Smoke & Fog

8 colors

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

MagicPixel

  • effects
  • vfx
  • grayscale

Volcano Ash

10 colors

Ashen grays warmed by cooling rock: volcanic slopes and burnt ground.

MagicPixel

  • environment
  • warm
  • dark

Iron & Rust

8 colors

Cold iron with two oxide tones for weathered weapons, chains, and machinery.

MagicPixel

  • metal
  • items
  • texture

UI Parchment

8 colors

Warm paper values for dialog boxes, scrolls, maps, and inventory panels.

MagicPixel

  • ui
  • warm
  • fantasy

Humid Jungle

12 colors

Layered green depth for dense foliage, plus a wet-bark ramp so trunks read against the leaves.

MagicPixel

  • environment
  • nature
  • forest

Ashen Wasteland

10 colors

Dead gray ash with rusted warms: burnt-out fields, ruined cities, post-eruption ground.

MagicPixel

  • environment
  • dark
  • muted

Sewer Runoff

10 colors

Damp mossy stone and stagnant water: underground tunnels and drainage tilesets.

MagicPixel

  • environment
  • dark
  • dungeon

Factory Floor

11 colors

Machine gray with hazard yellow and rust: conveyor belts, presses, and warehouse tiles.

MagicPixel

  • industrial
  • metal
  • interior

Subway Tile

11 colors

Grimy white tile and shadowed grout, with station green and signage red for accents.

MagicPixel

  • city
  • interior
  • texture

Dragon Scales

11 colors

Ember-red scale values with a horn-and-claw ramp: big warm-blooded beasts.

MagicPixel

  • monsters
  • fantasy
  • red

Dusty Library

10 colors

Old paper, leather bindings, and shelf shadow, with a green shade-lamp accent.

MagicPixel

  • interior
  • wood
  • texture

Baked Goods

10 colors

Crust-to-crumb browns with a jam accent: bread, pastry, and cooking-game props.

MagicPixel

  • items
  • warm
  • cozy

Copper & Bronze

8 colors

A ruddy metal ramp for bronze fittings, copper pipes, and steampunk trim.

MagicPixel

  • metal
  • texture
  • warm

Silver & Glass

8 colors

Neutral-cool metal values for blades, chrome, mirrors, and glass highlights.

MagicPixel

  • metal
  • cool
  • texture

Cloth & Linen

8 colors

Undyed fabric values: tunics, sails, bandages, and anything that should look woven.

MagicPixel

  • texture
  • muted
  • warm

Leather & Hide

8 colors

Tanned-hide browns with enough separation for straps, boots, and armor detailing.

MagicPixel

  • texture
  • warm
  • armor

Brick & Mortar

10 colors

Brick reds paired with mortar grays so masonry tiles read at a glance.

MagicPixel

  • texture
  • stone
  • town

Thatch & Straw

8 colors

Dry straw values for roofs, haystacks, baskets, and rural rooftops.

MagicPixel

  • texture
  • warm
  • town

Obsidian

8 colors

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

MagicPixel

  • texture
  • dark
  • stone

Salt Flats

6 colors

Cracked pale mineral crust for sun-bleached flats and dry lakebeds.

MagicPixel

  • environment
  • desert
  • muted

Geyser Basin

7 colors

Mineral terrace neutrals with steam-pale tops for thermal ground.

MagicPixel

  • environment
  • stone
  • warm

Scroll and Ink

7 colors

Parchment and iron-gall ink for maps, notes and quest logs.

MagicPixel

  • items
  • ui
  • warm

Dust and Debris

7 colors

Neutral particle browns for impacts, footfalls and crumbling walls.

MagicPixel

  • vfx
  • texture
  • muted

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.