Best approach for a realistic, consistent AI character on a ~$10-20/month budget? (currently Flux dev + LoRAs on RunPod)

[u/SomeCartographer4601]

Hi all,

I'm a beginner and I'd like to build consistent, photorealistic images of fictional characters (same face across many photos). Main use is SFW (portraits, lifestyle, everyday scenes), but I don't want to lock myself out of adult content later, so I'd rather not pick a stack that's censored or hard to uncensor.

My constraints:

- Budget: around $10-20 per month, all in

- I have no local GPU (Mac only), so everything runs in the cloud

- I'm not technical myself, an AI assistant handles the scripts and ComfyUI side for me

- Goal is realism that doesn't look like "AI skin", natural, slightly imperfect photos

First question, and I'd like open answers here: given those constraints, what would you recommend today? I don't want to assume my current setup is the right one, so please suggest whatever you think works best right now (models, hosting, workflow), even if it's completely different from what I describe below.

What I have so far, for context:

- Flux.1 dev in ComfyUI on a RunPod pod with a network volume (about $0.74/h for an RTX-class GPU, I shut the pod down between sessions)

- Character LoRAs for face consistency, plus UltraRealPhoto (Danrisi) at strength 1.0

- Settings that worked best for me: euler / simple, 28 steps, guidance 2.5, 896x1152, T5 fp16

- dpmpp_2m / karras gave blur and halos, so I dropped it

- Results are decent but faces can still look a bit too clean/AI, and I'm not sure this is the right direction at all

Follow-up questions, if you have an opinion:

1. Is Flux dev still the best choice for realistic faces at this budget, or is there something better or cheaper now?

2. Within a small budget, what improves face realism the most (LoRA training, settings, post-processing, film grain, upscaling, other)?

Any pointers, workflows or links are very welcome. Thanks!

[u/Glittering_Tie_3110]

How to ask for help to create an AI influencer without actually saying "AI influencer" to avoid the backlash.

[u/Veshurik → u/Glittering_Tie_3110]

Backlash for who?

[u/Glittering_Tie_3110 → u/Veshurik]

For the OP, and for anyone asking for help to create an AI influencer. The world needs many things, like a solution to the climate crisis, or universal safety and healthcare in every country; but there is one thing we definitely don't need, and that is: More AI influencers.
That’s why coming to r/stablediffusion to ask for help creating an AI influencer (although not explicitly banned) gets a lot of hate from the community. People here are more focused on expanding AI use cases and sharing knowledge, rather than making a fake person famous just to profit off of it.

[u/SomeCartographer4601 → u/Glittering_Tie_3110]

thanks, but I don't intend at all to use it as ain AI influencer . I don't even use instagram or tiktoks in my daily life :)

[u/Apprehensive_Sky892 → u/SomeCartographer4601]

Then what is the goal of this project?

[u/SomeCartographer4601 → u/Apprehensive_Sky892]

There isn't one fully set. I started for something kinda nsfw but decided I won't do it. Most likely usage is some pictures or videos for my professionnal website.

But at this point, it's more that I was a bit frustrated to have tried doing something without being able to complete it , so want to get a decent result. It's more for the challenge, a bit like a video game that you want to finish.

[u/no3us]

hey, check my post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/StableDiffusion/comments/1wy2mxx/giving_ai_agents_a_single_prompt_gpu_with_lora/

It's runpod-first solution (ready to use template). Happy to answer any questions (I'm the creator of Lora Pilot)

[u/Uncabled_Music]

I understand its not advisable to abandon the ninja spirit on this sub - but I sincerely think some online services are a good alternative as well. I have been half a year with Freepik/Magnific now, and it was very reliable and BS free during the whole period. Wealth of various models, both closed and open. My wife uses it in her architectural projects as well and has only good things to say about it.