It's been almost a year since I uploaded my last realistic Illustrious model. At the time, someone asked me if it wasn't an XL model. From that moment on, I dedicated myself to developing XL models. I felt that Illustrious had lost some of its essence, so I decided to return to the first Illustrious model I made with something very clear in mind.

This model was created with a very specific goal: bring true photorealism to the Illustrious ecosystem without sacrificing the strengths that made Illustrious so popular in the first place.

Many realistic anime-based models achieve impressive realism, but often lose what makes Illustrious special. Character recognition becomes weaker, prompts become less reliable, and dynamic scenes lose the energy that users expect. This model was designed to avoid those compromises.

What Makes It Special?

Preserves Illustrious Character Knowledge

• Strong recognition of popular characters

• Better retention of distinctive character traits

• Consistent identities across different scenes and styles

• Reliable prompt interpretation

Maintains Action-Oriented Composition

• Dynamic action scenes

• Dramatic camera angles

• Strong sense of movement

• Cinematic framing and visual storytelling

True Photorealistic Rendering

• Natural skin textures

• Realistic lighting behavior

• Detailed environments

• Convincing materials, fabrics, and surfaces

Built for Complex Prompts

• Handles crowded scenes more effectively

• Better composition under challenging conditions

• Stronger scene coherence

• Improved visual depth

The Philosophy

This is not an anime model trying to look realistic.

This is a realistic model built on the foundation that made Illustrious successful.

The goal was to preserve the vast character knowledge, prompt responsiveness, dynamic compositions, and action-focused imagery that users love, while transforming the final output into believable photography and cinematic realism.

The result is a model that can generate recognizable characters, dramatic action sequences, and complex scenes while delivering a level of realism that feels grounded, immersive, and visually striking.

The soul of Illustrious. The look of reality

• Starting with version 3, the VAE is baked

• Upscaler: Im using 4X-ClearRealityV1 upscale 1.5 Steps 5 denois 0.1 Hires CFG 1.1

• Width and height: 896*1152

• CFG Scale: 1.2

• Steps: 8

• The sampling method i use is LCM-Exponential, I have also obtained excellent results with Euler A-Karras, although sometimes the eyes don't turn out so well.

• Clip Skip:2

This is my first attempt at creating a realistic model in Illustrious. After receiving a master class from QH96 on how it works and the differences with Pony, I decided to venture into Illustrious. I immediately began to notice the differences, mainly in understanding the prompt and many qualities and I fell in love immediately, I spent countless hours trying to perfect a model that would adapt to my tastes with what I had experienced in Pony and finally arrived at a result that I charm and I found it worth sharing, you will surely find some flaws since I declare myself not an expert but I hope you like it as much as I do, it is important to follow the parameters since it has many limitations, especially in terms of samplers, the parameters that I used are :

• The VAE is not baked, use SDXL_vae

• Upscaler: Im using Latent(antialiased) upscale 1.5 Steps 6 denois 0.35 Hires CFG 1.2, sometimes i use Remacri_original, less realistic but with cleaner images

• Width and height: 896*1152

• CFG Scale: 1.2

• Steps: 8

• The sampling method i use is Euler A-SGM Uniform

I don't like to put my models in early access because I like everyone to have access from the moment I publish it but any tips and Buzz are welcome.