Third time's the charm - v3 is out. This is now one of the best realistic Illustrious models in my subjective opinion.

Version 3 took more than a month and over 500 hours of trying out novel and convoluted merging methods to make. This model now has 99% of the knowledge of Illustrious/NoobAI models, while being inherently realistic. The way it converts danbooru concepts to realism is kinda astonishing to me.

With the newly released Illustrious versions merged in this, this model has become even more competent while still keeping support for 0.1/Noob LoRAs (Not sure about Pony LoRAs though). This one has everything in it - the top SDXL realistic models, the best Pony models, and the best Illustrious and Noob models included in the merge.

The sampler and scheduler compatibility is unprecedented. Start with Euler A, Normal and then try out everything that catches your fancy. Lower CFGs are recommended for more realism, but higher values work just as well and maybe provide more contrast to your images.

It's also sad how some great models don't allow sharing merges of them. I made absolutely sure to only use models that allow sharing merges, openly disclosing them in the bottom of this description.

Overall, this was a huge learning experience because of the complex merging methods like DARE-TIES (previously used for my Quintessence PONY model), while focusing on specific transformer attention blocks. Note that I don't have the exact merge recipe as I work with a meager 256 GB SSD, and have to delete 100s of the intermediate models that I have made before the final result. Also a lot of luck was involved in the final result.

Keeping the concepts intact while still making the model realistic is a very complicated task, but the final result is absolutely worth it. Do try it out. Also, the elusive ugly nose problem has been fixed.

Also, for ABSOLUTE realism (if this one's not realistic enough) you can try the other great realistic Illustrious models, but I can guarantee the fact that complex gens are not possible with those because of the diluted base Illustrious knowledge.

Illustrated Quintessence - RC1 - NegativeSpace1