The basics
Perler beads are tiny tubes of plastic, typically 5mm in diameter, that you arrange on a peg-studded board to form a pixel pattern. A quick pass with a household iron melts them just enough to fuse together. Once cool, you have a flat, rigid piece of art ready to hang, glue or wear. Bitbead treats every bead position as a single "pixel" — exactly the way you'd reason about a sprite in a retro video game.
Sizes and shapes
There are three common bead sizes: • Mini (2.6mm) — the highest detail, but tricky for beginners. • Midi (5mm) — by far the most popular and what every brand stocks. • Maxi (10mm) — toy-grade, great for younger kids. Bitbead is calibrated for midi by default, which means a 29×29 pegboard makes a finished piece roughly 14.5cm square.
The brands
Four brands cover ~99% of the global market: • Perler — North America's default. ~150 solid colours plus specialty finishes. • Hama — the European and Japanese mainstream. Smaller, more curated palette. • Artkal — produced in China with the widest palette of all (300+ colours). • Artkal Mini — Artkal's 2.6mm small-bead version, perfect for fine-detail work. Bitbead ships all four palettes; pick the brand you actually own and the generator only suggests beads you can really buy.
What you need
Beyond the beads themselves: a pegboard (the plastic peg grid that holds beads while you work), parchment or ironing paper (so the iron doesn't touch the plastic directly), a regular household iron, and tweezers if you want a clean working speed. Total start-up cost is usually under $20 — the cheapest pixel art hobby in the world.