Meet Kitten.

A face/identity driven LoRA built off very tight crops on a very defined data set.

(Also my first "fully baked" non-test LoRA, and first released LoRA).

What does it reinforce?

Upturned nose, a defined bridge, pouty lips, long eyelashes, defined eye shape and brow, well manicured eyebrows, a defined jawline, and light freckling across the upper cheeks and top of the nose. It should blend well in to most Illustrious-XL models and merges, most SDXL models, and plays nicely with many Pony-XL models. Trained on Illustrious-XL as the base to maximize compatibility.

Many anime models will play nicely, but the less nose definition in the general model the more you may have to push the LoRA.

Usage

• Trigger Word: k1tt3nf4c3

• Secondary Trigger: freckles (helps to reinforce the facial features, and bring some identity back from other LoRAs that overpower the intentional subtlety behind it)

• LoRA Strength: 0.6 to 1.2
  (you can get hints at 0.3-0.5, but just hints)

As much as I hate the full l33tsp34k version of the trigger word, initial training output and Illustrious-XL models (many of them) leaned to heavily into cat girls, whiskers, or whisker tattoos, this prevents it.

Why does Kitten Exist?

Since starting AI generation coming from a background of photography and design work, the randomness has bugged me, especially when I find a specific character out of a large batch I like, then spend hours (or days) trying to chase that specific set of features again on other seeds, with other models.

Throwing mountains of prompt tuning at the problem, breaking model token limits constantly, only getting truly "close" a few times out of hundreds of images, but rarely ever finding "it" again.

So, I went all in on learning how to train my own LoRA, painstakingly worked through hundreds of Qwen Image Edit workflow runs that exceeded my VRAM, prompt tweaks, outputs, on and on. But in the end, I found her again, and again, and again.

Success.

Training Information

The dataset that drives this is very narrowly focused on the face, so it should play nicely across almost any body type, hair styles, hair colors, and most clothing/outfit LoRAs that don't overly pull on or push face characteristics. Trained on 40 tightly cropped face photos from the same source image, it should hold the character's primary identity while allowing for near complete customization everywhere else.

Cut at 300 steps to find the sweet spot on where safety prompts started to leak in slightly to allow for variation, it is intentionally a bit lightly tuned, the goal is to allow the character to show while having near full flexibility in all other aspects. Some models will play nicer than others, and some additional LoRAs may overpower if not balanced well.

Acknowledgement

This LoRA could not, and would not, exist without @purplelady's Elegence Niji LoRA (oddly enough, the Z-Image-Turbo version) creating the original style I found and loved, and the original version of the character that came out of it. You'll find as a result that due to that core structure it play's wonderfully together with the Illustrious version of Elegence Niji, and I highly recommend it if you're looking to amplify and reinforce this specific set of facial traits in your output.

The the source and training data is many steps removed from those original Z-Image outputs, the concepts that lead to this chase never left.

Next?

Her partner in crime, and raves, Minnie is in the works.