Illustrious XL - Fine-Tuned Checkpoint

This isn't just another standard fine-tune—it's a passion project built on top of Illustrious XL, powered by a unique, highly curated dataset that I've been building and refining over time.

A huge part of what makes this checkpoint distinct comes down to the data pipeline. To get the cleanest results possible, I wrote custom software specifically to process, crop, and strictly filter the dataset, eliminating low-quality frames, duplicate latents, and messy tag artifacts.

A massive portion of the training data consists of high-quality anime screencaps mixed with a very strict selection of hand-picked artists from Danbooru, alongside exclusive pieces from my private collection.

The goal was simple: boost overall artistic quality, cinematic lighting, and anatomy while keeping the underlying flexibility and prompt responsiveness of Illustrious intact.

What Makes It Different

• Custom Software-Filtered Dataset: Processed using my own custom-built scripts to ensure precise aspect ratios, zero junk data, and clean tag structures across every single image.

• Anime Screencaps & Curated Danbooru: Trained on a massive set of clean anime frames combined with only top-tier, hand-picked artists from Danbooru—no bloated noise or low-quality filler.

• Exclusive Private Sources: Includes rare high-res source images and personal collection picks.

• Enhanced Aesthetics & Detail: Noticeably better dynamic lighting, subtle shading, sharper line art, and cleaner anatomy (especially in complex poses and hands).

• Native Illustrious Compatibility: Follows standard Danbooru tag weighting seamlessly.

⚙️ Recommended Generation Settings

SettingRecommended ValueBase ModelIllustrious XLSamplerEuler a / DPM++ 2M Karras / DPM++ SDE KarrasSteps 24 – 32 CFG Scale 4.0 – 6.0 Clip Skip 2 Hires Fix

Upscaler: 4x-Anime6B

Denoising Strength: 0.35 – 0.5

Hires Steps: 10 – 15

Prompting Tips

• Tagging: Stick to standard Danbooru tags for characters, framing, and details.

• Quality Tags: You don't need to overload it with quality tags, but masterpiece, best quality, highly detailed still work well to push specific rendering styles.

• LoRAs: Plays very nicely with custom SDXL / Illustrious LoRAs at standard weights (0.6 - 0.8).

☕ Support & Future Development

I have a ton of big plans for future releases, dataset expansions, and specialized fine-tunes, but cloud GPU compute time isn't free.

If you enjoy this model and want to motivate me to keep training and improving these checkpoints, any support or crypto tips would mean the world and help cover cloud GPU costs!

• USDT (TRC20 / Tron): TRJJKfMPCMMcEEanbhVkCvcMza6nkofUVY

• ETH / EVM (ERC20): 0x8561D5eb5E6Ac9Ca3D6eE46295d9099b7bFD531b

Feel free to post your creations in the showcase section or leave a review—I'd love to see what you generate with it!