Pixel Art Maker
A free editor for drawing pixel art on a grid from 8×8 up to 64×64 by clicking or dragging to place colors. You can also load one of your own photos or illustrations and turn it into pixel art. Includes a fill (bucket) tool and an eraser, and lets you download your finished artwork as a PNG image.
What is a pixel art maker?
A pixel art maker lets you create pixel art by placing one color at a time on a grid of square cells, right in your browser, for free. You can choose a grid size anywhere from a compact 8×8 (great for small icons) up to a detailed 64×64, then click or drag to paint cells, and use the fill tool to instantly recolor a whole connected area of the same color.
Once your artwork is finished, you can download it as a PNG image with a single click, ready to use as a game icon, a social media avatar, a forum picture, or any other small pixel-based illustration. Everything happens locally in your browser, so nothing you draw is ever uploaded to an external server.
How to draw pixel art
- Choose a grid size Pick anywhere from 8×8 to 64×64 depending on how detailed you want the image to be. Changing the size later resets the canvas.
- Load an image if you want to start from one (optional) Pick a file under "Start from an image", or drag and drop one onto the canvas, and it is converted to pixel art at the current grid size. Once it is loaded you can keep drawing on top with the pencil and eraser.
- Pick a color Use the color picker for any color you like, or click one of the quick-color swatches for instant selection.
- Click or drag to paint cells With the pencil tool selected, clicking a cell paints it. Dragging across the grid paints a whole line of cells at once.
- Switch between eraser and fill Use the eraser to clear individual cells, and the fill tool to recolor an entire connected area of matching color in one click.
- Download as PNG When you're happy with the result, click "Download PNG" to save it as an image file with a transparent background. You can export at the actual size (one pixel per cell) or at a whole-number multiple of it.
Tips for getting more out of it
- Small grids (8×8, 16×16) work well for game item icons and social media avatars, while larger grids (32×32 and up) suit full character sprites or illustrations with a background.
- The fill tool only recolors cells of the same color (including transparent, unpainted cells) that are connected up, down, left, and right — it never affects separate, disconnected areas.
- To add simple shading, prepare one or two shades slightly darker and lighter than your base color, and place them only along the edges you want to look three-dimensional.
- Changing the grid size resets whatever you've drawn, so it's best to decide on a size before you start painting.
- Keeping the background transparent when you download makes the PNG easy to layer on top of other images, such as social media icons or app assets.
- When loading a photo, pictures where the subject fills the frame against a simple background stay recognisable once they are reduced to a handful of cells. If the outlines come out muddy, turn on "Snap colors to the 16-color palette" — cutting the number of colors gives the crisper look people associate with pixel art.
- The editor is zoomed in, so keeping an eye on the actual-size preview while you draw saves a lot of rework. At 8×8 or 16×16 in particular, detail that collapses at actual size is better left out — the picture reads more clearly without it.
Where this tool comes in handy
Prototyping game assets
Indie game developers can quickly sketch out pixel-art icons for characters and items while still in the idea stage.
Making avatars for social platforms
Create a quick pixel-art profile picture for X (formerly Twitter), Discord, or a forum in just a few minutes.
Practicing a retro game art style
A friendly way for beginners to practice the pixel-art look reminiscent of classic 8-bit and 16-bit consoles.
Rough drafts of pixel letters or logos
The grid layout is also handy for sketching pixel-style text or simple geometric logo concepts.
Glossary
- Pixel art
- An art style built from individual square dots (pixels) as the basic unit. It originated from the display limitations of early computers and game consoles, and today it's appreciated as a distinct visual style in its own right.
- Grid
- The lattice of square cells you draw pixel art onto. Each cell maps to one pixel, so the number of cells (for example, 16×16) is the same as the image's resolution.
- Fill (bucket) tool
- A tool that recolors every cell connected to the one you clicked that shares the same color, saving you from painting a large area one cell at a time.
- Transparency (alpha channel)
- The ability to leave part of an image "unpainted" when you save it. Exporting a PNG with a transparent background makes it easy to layer on top of other images or pages.
- Raster graphics
- A format that represents an image as a grid of dots, like pixel art does. Zooming in reveals the individual cells, unlike vector formats, which keep outlines defined mathematically.
Frequently asked questions
Side Note — why pixel art is still loved today
Pixel art as a style emerged during the 1970s and 80s, when computers and game consoles had severely limited display capabilities. Screens of the era could only show a handful of colors at a low resolution, and the craft of making characters and backgrounds look appealing within that tiny grid of cells and colors gradually developed into an aesthetic all its own.
Even now, decades after photorealistic graphics became the norm, pixel art has held onto a devoted following. In the indie game world, the "retro look" is often chosen deliberately as a selling point, and the almost craftsman-like skill of expressing personality within such a constrained medium continues to be passed down to new creators.
While many modern pixel-art editors have grown into paid, feature-heavy applications, there's still steady demand for something quick and simple — a way to knock out a small icon or a spur-of-the-moment illustration without any setup. A tool that works entirely in the browser is really a return to the simplest pleasure of pixel art: placing one color at a time onto a grid.