pixelpushr

Open pixelpushr: pixelpushr.hypomanic.studio

I'm Mad Bipolar from Hypomanic Collective. I've been writing software for over ten years, and doing pixel art and small games on the side for most of that. I wanted to push pixels on the go, on my iPad, away from the desk. Aseprite is what I use at home, and I love how drawing feels in Procreate. I couldn't find something that had both, so I made it.

pixelpushr is a pixel-art and animation editor built for iPad and Apple Pencil first. It's inspired by Aseprite's layers, frames and timeline, and by Procreate's full-screen canvas and gestures.

What it does

• Pencil, eraser, eyedropper, fills, selections, shading and dither
• Layers, frames, tags and onion skin on a real timeline
• Its own file type, .pixelpushr, keeps your sprite plus extras like the time-lapse replay. It also imports and exports .aseprite files, so work moves between it and Aseprite on your desktop
• Exports PNG, sprite sheets and animated GIF
• Records a time-lapse of your drawing and exports it as video
• Procreate-style gestures: two-finger undo, three-finger redo, pinch to zoom and rotate
• Autosave, twenty themes, remappable shortcuts, left-handed and one-handed layouts

Offline first, no account

It's a web app you install (a PWA). Open the link once, add it to your Home Screen, and it works with no connection from then on. There's no sign-in and no tracking. Your drawings stay on your device.

Made for my iPad, works elsewhere too

I built and tested it on an iPad Pro with Apple Pencil, so that's where it feels best. It also runs on other tablets and on a PC with mouse and keyboard, with shortcuts for everything.

Because it runs in the browser, there are a few limits:

• On iPad, add it to your Home Screen. In a plain Safari tab, iPadOS can clear the app's storage, drawings included, if you don't open it for a while.
• Your work lives in the browser's storage on that device. Clearing website data deletes it, so save .pixelpushr files as backups.
• Saving goes through the browser's download or share sheet, so it can't overwrite a file in place. Each save makes a new file.
• Pencil double-tap and squeeze aren't available to web apps. Some system gestures and browser shortcuts can't be overridden.
• On other tablets, pen pressure depends on the browser and device.

About AI

I used an AI coding assistant (Claude) to help write pixelpushr's code. The app itself has no AI in it: it doesn't generate images and it doesn't send your art anywhere. Every pixel is drawn by you.

This is a beta, and I'm putting it out to hear what you think before 1.0. Things may break, so keep a .pixelpushr copy of anything you care about. If something goes wrong, feels off, or you want a feature, leave a comment. I read all of them.

pixelpushr is free, made by Mad Bipolar of Hypomanic Collective. Not affiliated with Aseprite or Procreate.