What is Colorfigures?
Colorfigures is an AI skill by April Zhu. You describe an everyday object in one line, such as a gumball machine you can put a coin in, and the AI builds it as one self-contained HTML page: a hand-inked, flat-coloured isometric figure you can drag all the way round, with buttons that work, a See-through mode that shows the mechanism inside and labels that light up on each part as it moves. It suits appliances, vending and arcade machines, toys, signs and kiosks; the site says people, animals and plants do not suit the style.
The skill is MIT-licensed and free, but there is no public repository. It is distributed only as downloads from the author's site: a .tar.gz for Claude Code, Codex and Gemini CLI, a zip for ChatGPT, a .skill file for Claude.ai and a separate zip for the Gemini app. The package is about 234 KB of plain text: SKILL.md, a drawing engine, three example figures and a Python build script. No version number or release date is published, and the site's 'View on GitHub' button links nowhere.
The author also sells a Colorfigures UI pack for $49.90: 500 ready-made animated illustrations with a browser Studio for recolouring and exporting SVG and PNG, plus the skill. All Access, at $99, adds every other pack and every skill she publishes later. Neither page says whether these are one-time payments or subscriptions.
How much does Colorfigures cost?
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Skill | Free | MIT licence; figures are yours for paid and client work; tokens billed by your AI provider |
| Colorfigures UI pack | $49.90 | 500 animated illustrations, Studio for recolouring and SVG/PNG export, commercial use, the skill |
| All Access | $99 | Everything in the UI pack plus every other pack and every skill published later |
Skill free (MIT); you pay in AI tokens, roughly 200,000 to 400,000 per figure in Claude Code. Colorfigures UI pack $49.90 (500 illustrations, Studio, commercial licence); All Access $99 (adds every other and future pack and skill). Billing terms not published.
Is Colorfigures worth it?
A diagram that shows how a toaster knows when to pop is easy to describe and slow to draw. You need the case, the lever, the spring, the heating cards, and something that moves when you press it.
Colorfigures hands that job to your AI assistant. You type one line, and after a while you get a web page with a hand-inked, coloured machine you can spin round, press, and see inside, with labels that light up on each part as it works. The 26 figures on the demo page, from an espresso machine to a washer, look drawn by a person rather than generated, and they work on a phone.
The real price is the tokens. The site says plainly that a figure in Claude Code takes about 15 to 30 minutes and roughly 200,000 to 400,000 tokens; its own test, a parking meter with about 20 labelled parts, used around 230,000. On a $20 Claude Pro plan that is a large share of a working session for one picture. On the API, the same 400,000 tokens on Claude Sonnet 5.5 cost between about $0.80 if all of it counts as input at $2 per million and $4 if it all counted as output at $10 per million, and twice that on Opus 5.5. Follow-up edits in the same chat are much cheaper, by the author's account.
The catch: there is no public repository. You install by piping a tarball from a personal website straight into your skills folder, with no version number, no changelog and no way to see what changed between downloads. The files are plain text, about 234 KB, and the drawing engine makes no outside requests, so reading them first takes a few minutes and is worth doing. Mirrors made by other people have already appeared on GitHub; they are not the author's, and the licence asks anyone who shares the skill to keep its credit. The style also has a narrow range: no people, animals or plants, and nothing without a mechanism to show.
Our take: this is a delightful tool for the one figure that has to make a mechanism click for a reader, and a poor one for illustrating a whole blog every week. If you need many images in this style, the $49.90 pack of 500 finished ones will cost less than generating them, and Anatomy, a free skill on GitHub, covers the same idea in a cooler technical style with a public history.
Where it earns its place
A science teacher building lessons for a secondary school
Show pupils how a kettle knows when to switch itself off
Ask Claude for a kettle that boils and clicks off, then open the HTML file in class and switch on See-through so the switch mechanism inside moves as the water heats. Budget around half an hour and a large share of a Pro plan session per figure.
A technical writer at a 40-person hardware start-up
Add a clickable cutaway of the product to the docs
Describe the device and its parts, check the labels against the real design, and embed the self-contained page. Figures are licensed for commercial use; crediting Colorfigures is requested, not required.
A freelance designer making illustrations for client websites
Get a consistent set of animated objects in the client's brand colour
The $49.90 UI pack's 500 ready-made illustrations and Studio recolour and export SVG or PNG without spending tokens; the skill fills the gaps for objects the pack lacks.
Before you commit
- Setup
- One curl command extracts the skill into ~/.claude/skills, ~/.codex/skills or ~/.gemini/skills; restart and describe an object. Claude.ai and ChatGPT take an upload in settings and need a plan that includes skills. No packages; build.py needs Python 3.
- Integrations
- Claude Code, Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Codex, Gemini CLI and the Gemini app. Output is a single HTML file; the paid pack adds animated SVG, clean SVG for Figma, Sketch and Illustrator, and PNG.
- Data and privacy
- Installing only copies files, and figures run in the browser with no tracking, accounts or outside requests, according to the site. Your prompts go to whichever AI provider runs the skill, under its terms. The pack is sold through Payhip.
- Cost at scale
- Ten figures a month is about 2 to 4 million tokens: on the API, roughly $4 to $40 on Sonnet 5.5 depending on how much is input or output, or a heavy draw on a subscription plan's limits.
- Limits
- 15 to 30 minutes per figure in Claude Code; dense machines and multi-object scenes take longer. No soft, organic subjects. No versioning, so updates arrive silently or not at all.
What’s good
- Interactive figures you can rotate, press and see inside
- Figures are MIT-licensed and usable in paid and client work
- One self-contained HTML file with no outside requests
- Installs in Claude Code, Claude.ai, ChatGPT, Codex and Gemini
- Token and time cost per figure published up front
What’s not
- About 200,000 to 400,000 tokens and 15 to 30 minutes per figure
- No public repository, version number or changelog
- Does not suit people, animals or plants
- Pack billing terms and refund policy not published
Best for
Writers, teachers and product teams who want a few memorable, interactive how-it-works figures and have the AI plan headroom to pay for them.
Colorfigures alternatives
Colorfigures: common questions
- Is Colorfigures worth it?
- Colorfigures makes the most charming explainer figures we have seen from an AI skill, and the free download quietly costs you up to 400,000 tokens and half an hour each. We rate it 3.7 out of 5.
- How much does Colorfigures cost?
- Skill free (MIT); you pay in AI tokens, roughly 200,000 to 400,000 per figure in Claude Code. Colorfigures UI pack $49.90 (500 illustrations, Studio, commercial licence); All Access $99 (adds every other and future pack and skill). Billing terms not published.
- What are the downsides of Colorfigures?
- About 200,000 to 400,000 tokens and 15 to 30 minutes per figure; no public repository, version number or changelog; does not suit people, animals or plants; pack billing terms and refund policy not published.
- Who is Colorfigures best for?
- Writers, teachers and product teams who want a few memorable, interactive how-it-works figures and have the AI plan headroom to pay for them.
- How much does Colorfigures cost for a team or in production?
- Ten figures a month is about 2 to 4 million tokens: on the API, roughly $4 to $40 on Sonnet 5.5 depending on how much is input or output, or a heavy draw on a subscription plan's limits.
- Is Colorfigures safe for company data?
- Installing only copies files, and figures run in the browser with no tracking, accounts or outside requests, according to the site. Your prompts go to whichever AI provider runs the skill, under its terms. The pack is sold through Payhip.
- What are the best Colorfigures alternatives?
- The closest alternatives we have reviewed are Napkin AI and Recraft.
Answers checked Nov 7, 2026.