⚡ 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
v11j changes
Added some notes on where to find the SAM models and Ultralytics/Detection models to the workflow.
Rearranged some of the nodes to the left of the USDU groups
Added Laplace scheduler as an experiment:
Works with SamplerCustomAdvanced and USDU since they have Sigma inputs
Does not work with any of the detailer nodes, so your choice of scheduler still matters in the Sampler Scheduler Settings node
For Illustrious, it seems to only work with euler, euler ancestral, and their CFG++ variants, but YMMV
Toggling the Laplace Scheduler group off will default to using the usual node for the scheduler. It is also linked to the other Laplace related groups and will toggle them off as well.
This only works going from left to right on the workflow. So if you toggle one of the later Laplace groups off, it will only affect the related groups after it.
Custom Nodes used in this workflow as of v11j:
ComfyUI-Impact-Subpack (the Ultralytics Provider node was moved to here)
ComfyUI-ppm probably won't be detected using ComfyUI-Manager since I am only using it for its schedulers. You'll have to search for ppm in the Custom Nodes Manager or download/install it manually if you want to use AYS or Beta1_1 schedulers. ComfyUI-Manager is a nice tool, but it isn't perfect.
SAM Model used (This is needed for all the detailers):
sam_vit_b - download/install to models/sams folder
Ultralytics/Detection Models used:
Watermark Detection: nsfw_watermarks_s_yolov8 - download/install to models/ultralytics/bbox
Face:
Anzhc Face seg 1024 v2 y8n - download/install to models/ultralytics/segm
Eyes:
Eyeful_v2_Individual - download/install to models/ultralytics/bbox
Hands:
hand_yolov8s - download/install to models/ultralytics/bbox