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Illustrious
◆ OPEN
by UYouUs
OPEN WEIGHTSLOCALCHARACTER DESIGNDIGITAL ARTCREATIVE ART
RANKED #54 OF 78 IMAGES · OVERALL #241 OF 6,523 · VIBE SCORE 5.6 · 919 VOICES
An image generation model built for creating detailed digital art and characters.
HAPPY7.7
171 mentions
SAD7.3
86 mentions
VIBE TRAJECTORY
26 weeks · 372 voices
AGING WELL
The crowd is warmer now than it was at the start.
HOW TO USE IT
Open weights. You can use a hosted service, or download it and run it yourself, free.
RUN IT ON YOUR OWN MACHINE
Open weights: download Illustrious once and it's yours. No subscription, no rate limits, works offline.
6.6B parameters (SDXL architecture), full fp16 safetensors file is about 6.5 GB
- BARE MINIMUM
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB
12 GB VRAM
~$260 USEDFP16 precision, ~6 s/image at 1024x1024 (25 steps)
- SWEET SPOT
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER 12GB
12 GB VRAM
~$580 NEWFP16 precision, ~2.5 s/image at 1024x1024 (25 steps)
- FULL POWER
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 24GB
24 GB VRAM
~$1750 USEDFP16 precision, native 1536x1536 batch generation, ~1.2 s/image (25 steps)
LEARN HOW TO SET IT UP
WILL MY BOX RUN ILLUSTRIOUS?
The three cards above are researched picks. Search the machine you actually have — we only say yes if it should reply at a usable speed, not just load the weights and crawl.
HARDWARE PICKS & PRICES ARE RESEARCHED FROM THE LIVE WEB AND REFRESHED AUTOMATICALLY. TREAT THEM AS BALLPARK, NOT GOSPEL.
WHAT CAN YOU ACTUALLY DO WITH IT?
Everyday jobs on each of those rigs: how long Illustrious takes, and how good the crowd says it is at that kind of work.
| THE JOB | BARE MINIMUMNVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB | SWEET SPOTNVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER 12GB | FULL POWERNVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 24GB |
|---|---|---|---|
| Make an imageone picture at normal settings | ~6 S★★★★★ | ~3 S★★★★★ | ~1 S★★★★★ |
STARS ARE THE COMMUNITY SCORE FOR THAT KIND OF WORK, DOCKED FOR HOW SQUASHED THE WEIGHTS GET AT EACH TIER. TIMES ARE COMPUTED FROM RESEARCHED SPEEDS. BALLPARK, NOT GOSPEL.
WHAT THE INTERNET SAYS
Community members love Illustrious for its high quality results, noting it feels worth the money. Users are especially impressed by how well it handles multiple characters with great faces and hands out of the box.
673 POSTS · 246 COMMENTS · REDDIT · HACKER NEWS · LEMMY · BLUESKY
PEOPLE LOVE
- Results look great (5 mentions)
- People feel it is worth the money (3 mentions)
PEOPLE COMPLAIN ABOUT
- No complaints yet. The internet is still looking for one. Suspicious.
TOPIC BY TOPIC
- How results lookPEOPLE LOVE THIS
5 thumbs up · 0 thumbs down
- PricePEOPLE LOVE THIS
3 thumbs up · 0 thumbs down
IN THEIR OWN WORDS
- FROM REDDIT >
“perfect 8 chars as prompted with great faces/hands without any upscale or adetailer.”
LOOKING FOR AN ALTERNATIVE?
Checked picks first: tags say why you would switch, stars say how fully each one stands in for Illustrious.
Flux
Midjourney> SOURCES (12)
- REDDIT · 2025-07-21 · 745 UPVOTESThe Gory Details of Finetuning SDXL and Wasting $16k
The Gory Details of Finetuning SDXL and Wasting $16k
- REDDIT · 2025-02-12 · 568 UPVOTESSo, the new Illustrious seemed to have gone soft Closed Source with a "Pay 10€ to download" model...
So, the new Illustrious seemed to have gone soft Closed Source with a "Pay 10€ to download" model...
- REDDIT · 2025-07-13 · 525 UPVOTESHow can I generate images like this???
How can I generate images like this???
- REDDIT · 2025-07-22 · 505 UPVOTESHidden power of SDXL - Image editing beyond Flux.1 Kontext
Hidden power of SDXL - Image editing beyond Flux.1 Kontext
- REDDIT · 2026-04-22 · 429 UPVOTESGoonmaker workflow.
Goonmaker workflow.
- REDDIT · 2025-03-31 · 364 UPVOTESQuillworks Illustrious Model V15 - now available for free
Quillworks Illustrious Model V15 - now available for free
- REDDIT · 2026-01-31 · 350 UPVOTESNew model Anima is crazy! perfect 8 chars as prompted with great faces/hands without any upscale or adetailer. IMO it's so much better than…
New model Anima is crazy! perfect 8 chars as prompted with great faces/hands without any upscale or adetailer. IMO it's so much better than Illustrious and it's just the base model!
- REDDIT · 2026-07-23 · 343 UPVOTESNew to AI generation! Any recommandations to get similar results?
New to AI generation! Any recommandations to get similar results?
- REDDIT · 2026-04-28 · 342 UPVOTESIllustrious & NoobAI Style Explorer: Now with 16,000+ Danbooru Artist Aesthetics (Free, Open Source, Online/Offline)
Illustrious & NoobAI Style Explorer: Now with 16,000+ Danbooru Artist Aesthetics (Free, Open Source, Online/Offline)
- REDDIT · 2025-04-06 · 341 UPVOTESAny time you pay money to someone in this community, you are doing everyone a disservice. Aggressively pirate "paid" diffusion models for…
Any time you pay money to someone in this community, you are doing everyone a disservice. Aggressively pirate "paid" diffusion models for the good of the community and because it's the morally correct thing to do.
- REDDIT · 2026-04-23 · 283 UPVOTESIllustrious & NoobAI Style Explorer: 5,000+ Danbooru Artist Styles (Free, Open Source, Online/Offline)
Illustrious & NoobAI Style Explorer: 5,000+ Danbooru Artist Styles (Free, Open Source, Online/Offline)
- REDDIT · 2025-05-08 · 261 UPVOTESCivitai is taken over by Openai generations and I hate it
Civitai is taken over by Openai generations and I hate it