Pixel Art Maker

A free tool for making pixel art by painting a grid one cell at a time. Pick a canvas from 8×8 icons up to 64×64 characters, then save your work as a PNG or turn it into a Nonogram puzzle. Everything runs in your browser and your drawing is never sent to a server.

Paint with the pencil and erase with the eraser. Fill paints every connected cell of the same color (up, down, left, right), and the eyedropper picks a color from your drawing. Line draws a straight line between where you press and where you release. Turn on mirror to draw symmetrically left and right, and use Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y to undo and redo (up to 100 steps). Your work is saved automatically in this browser so you can pick up where you left off.

• Silhouette first — block in the overall shape with one color, then add lights and darks on top.
• Limit your colors — 4 to 8 colors is plenty. Fewer colors give a cleaner, more cohesive image.
• Avoid anti-aliasing — scattering in-between tones around edges makes pixels look messy. Keep edges crisp.
• Use mirror mode — for faces, characters and icons that are left-right symmetric, draw only half.

In the original PNG each cell is a single pixel, which is tiny. Saving at an integer scale (1, 4, 8, 16 or 32x) keeps the pixels sharp instead of blurry. 8 to 16x suits avatars and game sprites; 32x suits print or large screens. You can keep the background transparent or fill it white, and optionally include grid lines.

Your drawing becomes a color Nonogram puzzle link. Transparent cells stay empty, and drawings with many colors are reduced to at most 8 colors (6 by default). If you drew on a white background, "Treat white as background" (on by default) turns white cells into empty cells. Switch to black & white in the conversion settings to fill only cells darker than a brightness threshold. Any canvas size works. Press one button to open the puzzle in a new tab; the conversion settings (mode, color count, title) are optional.