⚡ Illustrious Workflow as of version 18
🛠️ Purpose & Design Philosophy
This workflow is a high-fidelity environment built for Illustrious XL. It prioritizes stability and professional texture over generation speed. It follows an "all-in-one" philosophy: configure your prompts, hit queue, and let the workflow handle the multi-stage refinement from start to finish.
Not for Speed: This is a heavy-duty refinement tool. If you want 2-second previews, use a basic SDXL workflow.
Personal Use: Built for my specific production needs. It is shared as-is for those who want a "set-and-forget" pipeline for Illustrious.
All-in-One Logic: The workflow handles generation, detailing, and upscaling in one continuous pass.
🚀 Key Features & 2026 Logic
Global Model Patching (RescaleCFG): Includes a pre-configured RescaleCFG patch (Multiplier: 0.7) applied globally. This acts as "HDR Insurance," preventing the "deep-fried" or over-saturated look common in high-CFG Illustrious runs.
Detail Daemon Sampler: Integrated to enhance structural depth. In this version, it is tuned to start at 0.4 to preserve the core Illustrious character proportions while sharpening hair and eye details.
Hybrid Upscale Strategy: * Group Bypass Switch: Easily toggle between a Pixel-only (Lanczos) path for flat anime styles and an Upscale-Model path for 2.5D/highly detailed renders.
Ultimate SD Upscale: Re-draws the upscaled canvas at a 0.35 denoise to lock in fine textures.
Power LoRA Loader: Manage multiple Illustrious-specific LoRAs without messy wiring.
Triple Detailer Groups: 3-stage targeted refinement for faces, hands, and clothing using standard detection models.
CivitAI Meta-Sync: Images are saved with full metadata (Model, LoRAs, Sampler info) for automatic site parsing.
⚠️ Disclaimer & Compatibility
Install at Your Own Risk: Custom nodes can break your environment. I am not responsible for troubleshooting your specific installation.
ComfyUI Portable: Built and tested on the Portable version. Desktop app users may face additional hurdles.
The "Your Version" Factor: Your node versions and environment are 99.9% likely to differ from mine.
Nodes 2.0: I do not recommend using Nodes 2.0. It creates unpredictable UI behavior; I will not provide support for issues involving this feature.
🤝 Support & Boundaries
No DMs: DMs are disabled due to repeat spam. Please check the Discussions tab below; most questions have already been answered.
Modifications: You are free to hack this workflow apart. However, you are responsible for fixing it if it breaks.
Custom Requests: I do not make private workflows. If you need a custom solution, post a Bounty on CivitAI. There are many talented creators ready to help you for a fee.
Description
v4g changes:
Generation time from start to finish on a 3060 RTX:
With the default settings and most of the extra stuff turned off: 165 seconds (including checkpoint loading time).
With everything enabled: 200 seconds (including checkpoint loading time).
Added Image Saver nodes back in and dropped ComfyUI-ImageMetadataExtension
This was primarily due to compatibility issues with the SamplerCustom node.
Added ImpactWildardEncode nodes back in and dropped the split positive prompt nodes and Efficiency Nodes.
This is for compatibility with the Image Saver nodes and to keep the lora/embedding info present in the resources shown when posting to civitai.
The first KSampler has been swapped to SamplerCustom
This was a choice based on preference and wanting to be able to use ComfyUI-Detail-Daemon from the beginning of the process.
Added a 2nd USDU (ComfyUI_UltimateSDUpscale) node for a 2nd pass.
IMO, USDU seems to strip out some details on the 1st pass.
The 2nd pass seems to help add details back in.
Adjusted the layout (again).
I will be removing the Alternative Watermark Removal portion of the workflow if I update this workflow again, since I do not use it (ever).
Included 2 versions of the JSON file. One with all the extras turned off and using Euler Karras. The other with everything on and using CFG++ sampler.