Medieval Helper LoRA
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About the Problem
Popular base models are generally good at creating an overall medieval warrior appearance, but they often struggle with historically plausible armor and weapons.
The connections between armor elements can start looking random, real weapon constructions get simplified or mixed together, and proper weapon grips and hand positioning are often broken.
Instead of historical examples, the model can easily turn everything into yet another piece of Fantasy armor: armored bras, decorative pauldrons, and random scale armor inspired by yet another TV series about The Witcher.
Medieval Helper LoRA was trained to improve the model’s understanding of these concepts and bring generation closer to real medieval armor and weapon constructions.
The training used 119 images collected from historical reenactments and museum exhibits.
Important: this LoRA cannot fix fundamental problems of the base model. For example, Klein 4B and Klein 9B may still have severe anatomical issues. In such cases, it may be useful to use third-party helper LoRAs.
Trigger
No special trigger word is required for any of the versions.
The concepts should be invoked directly using their natural names.
Versions
Krea 2 V2
V2 expands the dataset. The list of concepts has been expanded (see below), and stylized images were added during training for contrast.
Krea 2
At the moment, this is the base model where the LoRA shows the most interesting behavior.
What I particularly like is how the understanding of individual concepts improves after enabling the LoRA: the model becomes noticeably better at distinguishing specific armor elements, weapons, and their construction.
Krea 2 also handles more complex and diverse prompts well, so this is where you can experiment with combinations of different historical concepts, artistic styles, and more complex scenes.
Klein 9B
For Klein 9B, I recommend generating at around 8 steps.
Among the samplers, I particularly like res_multistep. In my experience, it helps reduce some of the model’s characteristic problems, especially situations involving multiple legs or strange variations of two-handed swords.
However, the LoRA itself does not eliminate Klein 9B’s fundamental anatomical problems. Its primary purpose is to improve the understanding and reproduction of the trained armor and weapon concepts.
Klein 4B
It is essentially the same situation as with Klein 9B, but the base model has more fundamental problems.
The LoRA improves the understanding of specific concepts, but it should not be expected to fix fundamental errors in the model itself.
The main advantage of this version is commercial-free use of the base model.
Anima
I did not like the result of training.
Known Concepts (Main list for all versions)
Below is a list of concepts that were sufficiently represented in the dataset and were considered trained. The list is sorted by the number of images in which each concept appeared.
Armor & Helmets
full plate armorclose helmarticulated pauldronspointed sabatonspointed visorgambesonpivoting visorfluted platessallet helmethourglass gauntletsbuckled front closurearticulated fingerssegmented finger platesmail skirtgreaves
Weapons & Handling
longswordwooden haftspike point (halberd)halberdback spikeaxe bladeflanged maceflanged headbucklerbuckler griplong grip
Shields & Mail:
central bossmail hauberkmail aventailventilation holes(helmet)
Non-European / Other Cultures:
samurai armorlamellar cuirasskusazurimenpomask helmetcloakkabuto helmetlamellar armorround shieldconical helmet
Addons exclusively for Krea 2 V2:
Horses & Mounted Combat
horse armor
chanfron
crinet
peytral
flanchards
horse caparison
mounted knight (seat, rein grip, lance carry as a composition concept)
Shield Attachment
heater shield
kite shield
forearm strap (enarme)
sword belt hanger
New Weapon Types
falchion
messer
sabre
rapier / swept hilt
smallsword
estoc
stiletto
bardiche
glaive
bill
voulge
war scythe
corseque / ranseur
New Helmets
barbute
kettle hat
morion
frog mouth helm
nasal helm
armet
great helm
Armor Details
gorget
tassets
poleyns
leg armor
leather arming straps
arming sword
Non-European
mongol armor
What This LoRA Is Designed to Do
The main idea behind the project is not to make the model generate “medieval” as a separate style.
The goal is much narrower: to give the model a more consistent visual understanding of specific elements of historical armor, weapons, and ways of using them.
Therefore, concepts such as full plate armor, close helm, mail hauberk, longsword, samurai armor, mask helmet, halberd, and others should work independently and be combined with ordinary prompts.
The LoRA is not a replacement for a good base model and is not a universal fix for anatomy. It is specifically a concept helper designed to help the base model better understand the historical construction of armor and weapons.
Description
FAQ
Comments (9)
THANK you my dude, was much needed. edit to beg: by the way, any chance you add bardiches to the model in the future? this version is already incredible, it knows a ton of armor pieces and weapons
Bardiches, messers, falchions, sword-breaker shields, daggers, estocs, actual Roman pilums, and other weaponry would be super cool additions to the original dataset.
However, have you checked the F2K9b and F2K4b versions? These models are hard to even brief, which is partly why I recommend Krea 2. Krea 2 performs well (actually it perfroms the best, I mostly ignore this model but now I'm truly sure that it is the best choice), but I'm still not sure if it is capable of expansions, unfortunately.
As soon as I have the time and opportunity, I'll expand the set of weapons and possibly armor (though it seems all the main historical types are already mentioned, except maybe Mongolian lamellar).
If you have a specific request for what's missing, I can try to add it.
However, I'll be making the update exclusively on Krea 2; other models simply don't cut it for me, and I consider them outdated as base models. Klein 9b is the best "ai photoshop" but actually thats all. It is not capable for Text To Image.
How successful this experiment will be is anyone's guess until I actually try it.
@MonsieurBaka Lately I only use Krea 2, so It kinda serves me well, what I currently do Is grab a poleaxe and just photoshop a bardiche head in it, It works when I'm making a realistic image, but I absolutely lack the ability to make real edits on other styles, Krea2 edit kinda helps but if the T2I model could make it natively (with a LoRA of course) it would make a ton of my work easier, or just slopping if I'm in the mod. anyways Love your work mang, I'm using your LoRA a ton since yesterday
@Masmalkar I've already put together an update plan. I think the update will be released this week or next week.
I added bardiches, but for some reason, they are taking on characteristics typical of bills and other polearms. I suppose these are the limitations of trying to "cram" so many concepts into a single large LoRA. You can check out the Mongolian warrior example in the gallery for the V2 version. I’ll upload it to the site in about 5–10 minutes.
@MonsieurBaka Yo, just sat down and saw this LoRA, thanks mang!, it does seem this is a problem with Krea 2 as a whole, as in, it knows an object/face and will always try to equate it to this object. for example a dude made an specific movie LoRA and somehow all the "male cowboy" were the exact same face as the main actor doesn't matter what you do, still thanks for trying, at this point the only real solution to have an specific "object" or "character" seems to be making a whole LoRA for that single thing, which is ridiculous, genuinely appreciate the effort tho.
Thanks for sharing. Does it include any reference images showing how to attach the shield to the forearm and hand?
It will include images like these in v2 for Krea 2
Very nice💕👍🏻