AETHER CROCHET DIGIART — Short introduction

AETHER CROCHET DIGIART imagines a hyperreal, tactile future where textile craft and cybernetics fuse. Your piece — a futuristic humanoid priestess with fiber-optic halo threads, black & chrome crocheted robes, woven circuitry and glowing symbols — reads like a DSLR portrait of a devotional android: soft, hand-made textures rendered at macro scale, yet shot with cinematic clarity. The voice of the work is meditative-sci-fi: artisan craft (knit/crochet) + neon synthwave lighting + machine ornamentation (mechanical parts, woven circuits) = an uncanny, reverent hybrid.

Which visual/styles fit the tags

Macro crochet realism / Hyperrealistic crochet textures / Photo-realistic DSLR portrait Use extreme close-up details, high focal clarity on the face/eyes and selective shallow depth-of-field (bokeh) to show stitched yarn, fiber optics, and minute weaving.
Cybernetic / Mechanical parts / Woven circuits Combine hard reflective chrome surfaces with soft yarn fibers — emphasize contrast of specular highlights vs. matte textile microstructure.
Synthwave / Neon colors / Futuristic cityscape Backgrounds with soft neon rim lights, gradient haze, and distant city bokeh complement the fiber-optic halo without competing with the portrait.
Priestess / Sacred motifs / Glowing symbols Use symmetrical, halo framing and muted, reverent posing — small glowing sigils stitched or embedded in the fabric for narrative.
Animal / Detailed eyes (if used) Optionally include avian/ feline-inspired eye shapes or subtle animalistic feathers/ear accents knitted into the hood — rendered with reflective, glassy eyes to increase emotional impact.

LoRA usage & quick tips

Train or apply a LoRA that emphasizes macro textile detail, yarn microstructure, and cybernetic ornament separately (if possible, use two LoRAs: crochet-texture + cybernetic-ornament).
When applying LoRA(s), keep individual weights moderate (avoid >1.2 unless you want a strong stylized override). Blend for balance: e.g. Crochet LoRA 0.8, Cyber LoRA 0.6.
If you are training a LoRA from your examples, prioritize high-res macro crops (512–1024 px crops of stitches), include varied lighting and different yarn types so the model learns texture, sheen, and depth.

Recommended generation settings (one-page cheat sheet)

These are practical defaults for Stable Diffusion-style workflows. Adjust within the ranges depending on your sampler and model.

Suggested single-run settings (portrait centered)

Sampling Method: DPM++ 2M Karras or Euler a (DPM++ Karras tends to produce smoother highlights; Euler a often crisper edges).
Sampling Steps: 28–40 (use 28 for faster iterations, 35–40 for final high detail).
CFG Scale: 5.5–7.5 (6.5 is a good starting point to keep creativity while obeying prompt).
Clip Skip: 1 or 2 (set 2 if using CLIP-based enhancement models that benefit from skipping last token; many users prefer 2 for detailed faces).
Upscaler: Real-ESRGAN 2x + GFPGAN for face refinements, or R-ESRGAN/SwinIR for clean textile detail. If you want to preserve crochet microstructure, prefer Real-ESRGAN with moderate strength.
Hires Steps: 20–30 (when using Highres fix: these are the steps dedicated to the upscaled pass).
Denoising Strength (for hires/enhance pass): 0.45–0.6 (0.5 is a balanced value — preserves composition while enhancing detail).
Resolution Size:
- Draft: 512×768 (portrait, 2:3)
- High detail: 768×1152 or 1024×1536 (use model/vram permitting — these emphasize macro yarn structure)
- Ultra: 1536×2304 if you have sufficient VRAM and want mega macro detail.

Example settings block (copy/paste for one final render)

Sampling Method: DPM++ 2M Karras
Sampling Steps: 36
CFG Scale: 6.5
Clip Skip: 2
Upscaler: Real-ESRGAN x2 (post-process with GFPGAN for facial polish)
Hires Steps: 28
Denoising Strength (hires): 0.5
Resolution: 1024 × 1536 (portrait)

LoRA-specific parameters

LoRA weights: Crochet LoRA 0.7–0.9, Cybernetic LoRA 0.4–0.7. If single LoRA: 0.9 for dominant crochet style, 0.6 if you want balance.
LoRA layers to target (if adjustable): prefer mid-to-high layers (attention & cross-attention) to affect texture and style without distorting composition.
Prompt placement: reference LoRA names in the positive prompt or in your model loader, and set the weight explicitly e.g. <aether_crochet:0.85>.

Prompt engineering — quick example

Positive prompt (shortened): hyperrealistic crochet portrait, humanoid priestess, fiber-optic halo threads, black chrome crocheted robes, woven circuits, glowing runes, macro crochet realism, DSLR clarity, shallow depth of field, cinematic rim lighting, synthwave neon rim, ultra-detailed eyes, photorealistic texture, (intricate stitches:1.3), (glossy chrome accents:1.1)

Negative prompt (shortened): lowres, deformed hands, jpeg artifacts, text, watermark, oversaturated, cartoon, low detail

Postprocessing & final polish suggestions

Minor color grading: increase cyan-magenta midtones for synthwave feel, slightly reduce global saturation to let fiber details read.
Dodge & burn micro-contrast on yarn ridges to emphasize stitch relief.
Composite: keep halo and background separate layer to adjust bloom independently (helps maintain crochet clarity while having soft halo glow).