ideaPixel
Describe the sprite, the AI draws it. LIVE
Needs your own API key: without a key, generation won't run. See "What you need to have" below.
- Single file, no install
- 14 AI providers to choose from
- Key stays in your browser
- Exports PNG or JSON
WHAT IT IS
A Paint.NET that never gets tired of repeating itself
ideaPixel is a pixel art generator that runs entirely in a single HTML file, nothing to install. You describe the sprite you want, pick a resolution, and it draws the pixel grid in the PICO-8 palette. Born from being too lazy to open Paint.NET again for every variation of the same little character.
It talks to fourteen different AI providers: ten with a free tier (Groq, Google Gemini, Cerebras, Mistral, NVIDIA NIM, Cloudflare Workers AI, Cohere, Together AI, SiliconFlow, OpenRouter) and four paid (DeepSeek, Anthropic, OpenAI, Perplexity). You choose which one to use and bring your own key.
STEP BY STEP
How to use it
Pick a provider in the Providers tab and paste your API key into the Keys tab. Type a prompt (for example, "fire sword"), pick a resolution, and click Generate. The pixel grid shows up in the gallery, ready to export as PNG or raw JSON for reuse.
BEFORE YOU START
What you need to have
A modern browser and an API key from at least one of the fourteen providers listed above. Ten of them have a free tier, so it's possible to use it without paying anything, but the key always belongs to the visitor: no key ever passes through ideabob, because there's no ideabob server in this story. Each provider has its own rate limit per minute or per day; the tool shows that limit in the Providers tab.
PRIVACY
What stays on your machine
Your API key is stored in localStorage, in your own browser, and sent straight from there to the provider you chose. It never passes through an ideabob server, because this story doesn't have one: ideaPixel is static HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, no backend at all. The sprites you generate also stay only on your machine, until you decide to export them.
NOTE FROM IDEABOB
Why I made this
Every time I wanted to test a sprite variation I had to open the image editor, draw pixel by pixel, save, test it in the game. ideaPixel cuts that path short: I describe what I need, the AI draws it, and I pick what to keep. It's not meant to replace a real pixel artist's work, it's for prototyping fast while the game is still taking shape.