In Minecraft 26.x, Mojang added support for custom painting variants via datapacks and resource packs! You no longer have to replace original painting textures like KZ.png.
Painting Canvas Aspect Ratios
Minecraft paintings use pixel dimensions in multiples of 16:
- 1x1 (16x16 px): Small portraits and signs.
- 2x1 (32x16 px) / 1x2 (16x32 px): Landscape and vertical banners.
- 2x2 (32x32 px): Medium square art.
- 4x3 (64x48 px) / 4x4 (64x64 px): Wall murals.
Adding Custom Paintings in Minecraft 26.x (26.1/26.2)
In Java 1.21, custom paintings are registered under data/namespace/painting_variant/my_art.json:
{
"asset_id": "my_namespace:my_art",
"width": 2,
"height": 2
}Convert any PNG image into a ready-to-use painting pack with our Custom Paintings Pack Converter!
Prepare the source image
- Crop the artwork to the aspect ratio of the painting size you want to replace or add.
- Resize with nearest-neighbor scaling when preserving pixel art.
- Export as PNG with the filename expected by the pack.
- Place it in the edition-specific resource-pack path and update metadata or definitions as required.
- Reload the pack and place the painting in a controlled test room.
Java and Bedrock use different pack structures
Do not copy a Java texture folder directly into a Bedrock pack. Java and Bedrock organize painting assets and definitions differently, and custom variants may require more than replacing one atlas image. Keep separate output packs and test each edition independently.
If the image is stretched, the source aspect ratio does not match the target canvas. If the old artwork remains, verify pack priority, path capitalization and whether another active pack overrides the same asset.
