FLCL (2000) style -- LoCon for Pony, LoRA for AnimagineXL 3.1

A style LoRA (a huge LoCon for Pony, a large LoRA for AnimagineXL 3.1) for the classic FLCL anime from the years 2000-2001.

A quick plug: I have other classic anime style LoRAs/LoCons. Check out https://civitai.com/user/SweetRammaJamma!

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SOME INFORMATION SPECIFIC TO THIS LORA/LOCON:

Primary trigger word is FZKZ.

If the style is too strong for you, try putting the trigger word at the VERY end of the positive prompt (even after Animagine's quality tags such as "best quality" and "absurdres") BEFORE you try lowering <the actual LoRA strength:0.9>. You can also leave out the trigger word entirely and still get interesting effects. Also, please let us all know if you find any interesting combinations between my LoRAs/LoCons and any other checkpoints!

I recommend trying the Pony LoCon with 1) ColorburstXL, 2) LuminaverseXL, 3) Reponygine, and 4) AnimeConfettiComrade (see the "GENERAL INFORMATION" below for more info"). Keep in mind that there's non-Pony versions of all of those checkpoints, so be sure to try the Pony ones. Also, all of my testing is with "primarytriggerword, score_9, score_8_up, score_7_up, score_6_up, source_anime" at the beginning of the positive prompt, so try that first.

For the Animagine XL 3.1 LoRA version, I've tested it to work adequately with the AnimagineXL 3.1 base model itself (see "GENERAL INFORMATION" below for more info). Also, all of my testing is with the primary trigger word at the beginning of the positive prompt, plus "masterpiece, best quality, very aesthetic, absurdres" at the end of the positive prompt, plus "worst quality, low quality, jpeg artifacts, lowres, blurry" at the end of the negative prompt.

There is also a secondary trigger word, "MZNGZ," for mimicking the style of FLCL's manga sequences. No guarantees as to the quality/accuracy, but "MZNGZ" by itself can generate some interesting effects, and you may want to try "FZKZ, MZNGZ, greyscale, monochrome" (which were the four tags guaranteed to be in all of the manga training images).

There is a tertiary trigger word -- "looney." Images that were more "cartoony" were tagged with "FZKZ, looney," so that the "looney" trigger word would absorb features that would interfere with more important features (like FLCL's iconic eye style). I haven't personally played around with the "looney" trigger word too much, but plenty of images were tagged with it, so I'm sure it has an effect.

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Speaking of FLCL's eye styles: No specific characters were tagged, so "brown eyes" might give you Mamimi's "flatter/emptier" eyes.

Also, you will probably also want to use "simple background, gradient background" in the negative prompt, because FLCL has plenty of simple backgrounds.

I may have also missed tagging a few of the cats, because my standard test subject is catgirls, and this LoRA tends to generate some excess cats. It's pretty manageable through standard prompting, but be aware!

Overall, it is what it is. Don't be surprised if things look like FLCL!

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SOME GENERAL INFORMATION ABOUT ALL OF MY LORAS/LOCONS:

Sorry about the lack of image generation data. I'm going to work on uploading images with generation data when I have time/energy. In the meantime, I can tell you:

To generate the sample images, I don't use outside LoRAs. As in, I only use the checkpoints plus my own LoRA/LoCon. I don't use embeddings, either. So the sample images are very "pure/simple."

I use ComfyUI only, so my image generation methods might be different from what's typical with Automatic1111 or CivitAI's online generator. Notably, I don't inpaint! If things get too weird, I usually just "roll the dice" again! But chances are good that inpainting will be an asset to you, especially for things like getting eyes that are 100% stylistically correct.

99% of my testing is with Euler A, at 25-30 steps, CFG 6-7, with the LoRA/LoCon at strength 1.0, and with the trigger word at the very start of the positive prompt. I test both latent upscaling (1.25x to 1.5x, 0.60-0.65 denoise, ~12 steps) and "regular" upscaling. I've tested face detailers, too. All of it works appropriately, but some typical "light troubleshooting" will be required if you're going for a specific output.

I do upscale my sample images quite a bit. Usually, it's latent upscaling first, then an additional pass with "regular" upscaling at about 1.5x. I usually resize with boring old Lanczos, and not "model upscalers" (such as AnimeSharp4X), because Lanczos resizing ends up more faithful to the original anime's style -- but really, I do whatever works.

In regards to upscaling and YOU: Don't be surprised if something like my Guyver OVA LoCon gives you gritty/grainy initial results. Experimentation is required. And it varies from LoRA to LoRA -- for example, FLCL is a nice-looking and somewhat modern anime, so it doesn't have the same problems as the Guyver OVAs.

Where you put the trigger word does matter, and (the trigger word's weight:1.2) does affect things. So to decrease the "faithfulness/literalness" of the style, put the trigger word all the way at the end, and (decrease its weight:0.5). Putting the primary trigger word at the end seems to be more important to play with when using AnimagineXL 3.1 with the LoRAs. Of course, you can play with the weight of <the actual LoRA/LoCon:0.8>, but I tried to ensure that things work reasonably at 100% strength. (If my LoRAs/LoCons are totally unusable at 1.0 strength, I simply don't release them! I find another way to re-train them!)

For both Pony and Animagine, I try "simple background, gradient background" in the negative prompt. This does seem to help with the typical boring backgrounds of SDXL anime models, and it might help more than usual in cases where a LoRA/LoCon is based on an anime that has many boring/simple backgrounds (FLCL comes to mind).

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GENERAL INFORMATION FOR MY PONY LOCONS:

My Pony testing was all done with pretty standard quality tags in the positive prompt, in the form of "primary trigger word, score_9, score_8_up, score_7_up, score_6_up, source_anime," so I can guarantee that those work, but feel free to experiment!

For checkpoints to combine with this Pony LoCon at 1.0 strength, I recommend starting with the following (which are in the "Recommended Resources" at the bottom of the page):

1) ColorburstXL (Pony), because it produces "faithful style" while still being more consistent and aesthetically pleasing than the base Pony model. Then, maybe try...
2) Luminaverse (Pony) will get you something more "modern" while still being quite faithful to the LoCon.
3) Reponygine (Pony) will get you something quite "modern and pleasant," while still retaining good core style features (like eyes and hair details) and character likenesses.
4) AnimeConfettiComrade (Pony), IF you want a MORE "literal" interpretation of the LoCon, while still being more consistent than the base Pony model.

You CAN use this Pony LoCon with the base Pony model, but the style might be overpowering, and you may have to lower the LoCon's strength a fair bit below 1.0, and/or move the trigger word to the end of the positive prompt, and/or reduce the strength of (the trigger word:0.1) -- which are all the same ways that you'd adjust the strength with other checkpoints, of course. Adjust to your taste, always :) And, there are many more Pony-based checkpoints that I haven't even tried, so if you find one that works well with this LoCon, please let us all know!

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GENERAL INFORMATION FOR MY ANIMAGINE XL 3.1 LORAS:

My testing was all done with "masterpiece, best quality, very aesthetic, absurdres" at the end of the positive prompt, and "worst quality, low quality, jpeg artifacts, lowres, blurry" at the end of the negative prompt. If necessary, I put the primary trigger word at the very, very, very end of the positive prompt, after all quality tags.

The LoRA should work fine with the AnimagineXL 3.1 base model at 1.0 strength or a little below. You can use AnimaPencil if you want to try a 2.5D look, but you'll be sacrificing quite a bit of the overall style.

Let us all know if you find any other checkpoints that work well with the LoRA!

Also, I've heard that AnimagineXL 3.1 supports a shit-load of artist tags, so if you're adventurous, you could try combining with those... but I haven't investigated that yet.

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Yes, my filenames are long. It's because I personally use LoRA filenames to quickly compare different versions of my LoRAs while testing things. I recommend renaming the file to your tastes! Though it would make sense to leave the primary trigger word in the filename, right? (It's up to you!)

Yes, my Pony LoCons are extraordinarily large. But I made them for myself, and, to quote my genius friend, "it works for me and what I do." If you try these Pony LoCons, and you've made some SDXL style LoRAs/LoCons that you like, I would be happy to discuss training settings with you.

My AnimagineXL 3.1 LoRAs are also quite large, but more standard. I trained them as regular LoRAs instead of LoCons because I've always had weird results training/testing my style LoRAs/LoCons on AnimagineXL (going all the way back to AnimagineXL 2.0), and keeping things simpler seems to work better. Note that I don't release the AnimagineXL 3.1 LoRA versions unless they work OK, so if one is missing, that's why. I plan on troubleshooting that later, but for now, I'm trying to work through uploading my backlog!

I keep training datasets identical for both the Pony and Animagine versions. If there are any minor differences, I will make a note of that in the "specific information" section closer to the top of this page. (Major dataset changes will be noted by the version numbers, like "Pony-V1" versus "Pony-V2," and "ANXL3.1-V1" and "ANXL3.1-V2")

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No warranty, express or implied.

I place no special restrictions on what you may do with these .safetensors files. Likewise, I am not responsible for anything that you do with them.