Minecraft Pixel Art Generator
Upload a picture and this Minecraft pixel art generator converts it into a grid of 130 flat block colours. Choose the width in blocks (16 to 256), pick wool, concrete, terracotta or a survival-friendly palette, and switch dithering on for smoother shading. You get a preview, a material list in stacks, and a row-by-row guide. The image never leaves your device.
How to turn a picture into Minecraft pixel art
- 1
Add your picture
Press Choose image and pick a photo, drawing or logo. It is read by your browser only. Press Sample to try the tool first.
- 2
Set the size
Drag the width between 16 and 256 blocks. The height follows the shape of your picture. Smaller sizes are quicker to build, larger ones keep more detail.
- 3
Pick a palette
Use wool, concrete or terracotta alone for a clean look, mix them, or take the survival-friendly set that skips Nether, rare and falling blocks. Turn dithering on for photos, off for flat art.
- 4
Build from the guide
Read the material list, then follow the numbered grid row by row. Download the PNG, a CSV of the block grid, or a text file with the list and every row.
Which block palette should you choose?
Each choice limits which blocks the converter may use. Fewer colours look more graphic, more colours look closer to the photo.
| Survival friendly | Common overworld blocks only: no sand or gravel that fall, nothing from the Nether or the End, no storage blocks of rare ores. A good default for a real survival world. |
|---|---|
| Wool only (16) | The 16 dye colours with a soft, even look. Easy to get, easy to recolour, and flammable, so keep fire away. |
| Concrete only (16) | Brighter, flatter colours than wool. Needs dye plus sand and gravel, but looks crisp and does not burn. |
| Terracotta only (17) | Muted earth colours, plus plain terracotta. Good for portraits in warm tones and for landscapes. |
| Wool + concrete (32) | Two shades of every dye colour, which gives photos more depth than either set alone. |
| All blocks | 130 common full blocks including planks, stone types and storage blocks. The widest range, and the most expensive to gather. |
| Dithering | Floyd-Steinberg error diffusion, calculated in a perceptual colour space. It mixes neighbouring blocks to imitate colours the palette does not have. |
| Output | Preview PNG, numbered guide PNG, block grid CSV, and a text file with the material list and a run-length description of each row. |
How an image becomes blocks
The converter shrinks your picture to the number of blocks you chose, then replaces each pixel with the block whose colour is closest. Closeness is measured in OKLab, a colour space built so that equal distances look about equally different to the eye. That matters because a plain red-green-blue distance often picks a block that is numerically near but looks wrong, for example a grey for a muddy brown.
Every block in the table has one flat colour, an average of its look written from general knowledge, so the preview is an approximation of what you will see in game. Blocks have patterns and shading in the game, which softens the result a little. For the closest match, build a small test patch of your chosen palette first and compare it to the preview.
With dithering on, the difference between a pixel and its chosen block is spread to the pixels next to it. A sky that falls between two blocks becomes a fine mix of both, which reads as the in-between colour from a distance. Turn it off for logos, sprites and anything with hard edges, where the mix would look like noise.
Choosing a size and counting what you need
Width is the biggest choice. A 32 block picture takes an evening and shows only the main shapes. A 64 block picture is the usual balance for a portrait or a game sprite. At 128 blocks and more, a photo starts to show faces and text, but it needs thousands of blocks, so check the material list before you start gathering.
The list shows every block type with its count, the number of stacks of 64, and the total number of stacks plus the shulker boxes that would hold them (27 stacks per box). If the list is long, switch to a smaller palette: fewer block types means fewer trips to the chest and a more uniform wall.
Pictures with a transparent background keep those pixels empty if the option is on, so a sprite or logo comes out as a cut-out you can place on any background. Turn it off to fill the empty pixels with the nearest block instead.
Building it: wall, floor and the guide
Pixel art is usually built as a vertical wall, but the grid works just as well on the ground. Mark the corners, build a line of scaffolding along the top edge, and work one row at a time. The row picker above the grid lists a single row as runs, such as 12 x Light Blue Wool, 3 x White Wool, so you can place blocks without counting squares.
The numbered grid draws a heavier line every ten blocks. Use it to keep your place on wide rows and to check halfway points. Zoom it in for numbers inside each square, or out to see the whole image on one screen.
If your picture is wider than you want, build it in panels: the columns divide cleanly at multiples of ten. For something that fills a whole map, use the map art generator, which also handles the map colour table and staircase shading.
Want a real 3D model instead of blocks?
Turn a short text prompt or a photo into a textured 3D model with AI, or bring a Minecraft skin into 3D. The block tools on this page stay free and run in your browser.
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Minecraft pixel art generator questions
Not affiliated with Mojang or Microsoft. Minecraft is a trademark of Mojang Synergies AB, named here only to describe what the tools are for. Block and map colours are flat approximations drawn by us; no game textures or files are used.