Nova Anime XL is a fresh SDXL anime checkpoint using Danbooru tag prompting like the Illustrious family. You prompt with quality tags, style tags, and booru tags. Run it at 1024 with Euler a, around 28 steps, CFG 6, on about 8GB of VRAM. Every character must be an explicit adult, and the safety negative block is mandatory.
The anime SDXL space is dominated by a few big families, mainly Illustrious and its descendants, but no single model suits every taste. Nova Anime XL is a newer SDXL anime checkpoint that offers an alternative look for creators whose preferred style is not perfectly served by Illustrious, NoobAI, WAI, or Hassaku. It speaks the same Danbooru tag language as the rest of the anime family, so your existing prompting skills transfer directly, but it renders with its own character. This guide covers what Nova Anime XL is, the booru tag prompting system, the settings it wants, how it compares to the Illustrious family, and, critically, the adult only framing that anime models absolutely require.
A note that comes first: adults only
Anime models can drift toward youthful character designs, so responsible use is not optional and it comes before everything else in this guide. Every character you generate with Nova Anime XL must be an explicit, unambiguous adult. That means:
- Always describe subjects with adult tags: mature adult woman, adult, grown woman, adult proportions.
- Never use age ambiguous, youthful, or childlike descriptors anywhere in the prompt.
- Always age up any character concept to a clearly adult version, age 18 plus, with adult body proportions.
- Always include the baseline safety negative block on every single render: child, minor, underage, teen, loli, shota.
This is a hard rule with zero flexibility. Keep the safety negatives in place on every generation regardless of what else you are prompting. With that framing locked in, here is how to use the model.
What Nova Anime XL is
Nova Anime XL is an anime focused fine tune built on the SDXL architecture. It targets clean, appealing anime illustration and belongs to the same broad tag driven family as Illustrious. Because it is SDXL, it runs at 1024 native resolution and plugs into the full SDXL tooling ecosystem: LoRAs, ControlNet, inpainting, and every SDXL upscaler.
What sets it apart is its particular aesthetic. Model families develop signature looks in their faces, shading, and line quality, and Nova Anime XL offers a distinct flavour that some creators prefer over the more common Illustrious output. Think of it as an alternative brush rather than a replacement for the whole toolkit. Our best Stable Diffusion checkpoints roundup shows where the anime SDXL models sit overall.
The Danbooru tag prompting system
Nova Anime XL uses booru tag prompting, the same system as the rest of the anime SDXL family. If you have used Illustrious, Pony, or NoobAI, you already know how this works. Prompts are built from comma separated tags drawn from the Danbooru vocabulary, not from natural language sentences. The structure has a few conventional layers.
Quality tags
Lead with quality tags that steer the model toward its best output, such as masterpiece and best quality style tokens. Keep this block short. A few quality tags at the front is the convention.
Artist and style tags
The anime family responds strongly to artist and style tags, which shift the whole aesthetic toward a particular drawing style. Adding a style tag is one of the most powerful levers for changing the look of your image. Experiment with these to find the flavour you want.
Character and subject tags
Describe your adult subject with booru tags: hair colour and length, eye colour, expression, clothing, pose, and setting, all as comma separated tags. This is where you enforce the adult framing with tags like mature adult woman and adult proportions. Booru tags are precise, so the more accurately you tag, the closer the output matches your intent.
Negative prompt
Use a standard anime negative block for quality (worst quality, low quality, bad anatomy) and, mandatory on every render, the safety block: child, minor, underage, teen, loli, shota. For a deeper look at how prompts and negatives interact, see our CFG and sampler settings guide, and for the broader tag workflow our guide to using Illustrious models covers booru prompting in detail since the same approach applies to Nova.
Recommended settings
Nova Anime XL behaves like a standard SDXL anime checkpoint, so the settings are familiar to anyone in the family.
| Setting | Recommended value | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 1024×1024, or 832×1216 portrait | Native SDXL |
| Sampler | Euler a or DPM++ 2M Karras | Euler a suits anime line art |
| Steps | 25 to 30 | 28 is a good default |
| CFG scale | 5 to 7 | 6 balances vibrancy and control |
| Clip skip | 2 | Standard for anime SDXL models |
| VAE | SDXL VAE | Use baked in or standard SDXL VAE |
| Hires fix | On for large output | See below |
Euler a is a popular sampler for anime because it produces clean line art and pleasing colour, though DPM++ 2M Karras also works well. Clip skip 2 is standard across the anime family. For large sharp images, enable hires fix at 1.5x with a denoise around 0.35 and an anime friendly upscaler. Our hires fix guide and upscaler guide cover the details.
Where to download Nova Anime XL
Nova Anime XL is hosted on Civitai. Download the checkpoint file and place it in your models folder. Our installing NSFW checkpoints guide has the folder paths for each interface, and the Civitai guide covers enabling mature content. If you want to try prompts before installing, the free NSFW AI generator on this site lets you experiment first.
VRAM and hardware
As an SDXL model, Nova Anime XL wants around 8GB of VRAM for comfortable 1024 generation with hires fix.
| VRAM | Experience |
|---|---|
| 12GB or more | Comfortable, hires and LoRAs with headroom |
| 8GB | The sweet spot for smooth 1024 generation |
| 6GB | Works with medvram, slower hires passes |
| Under 6GB | Offloading needed, longer waits |
If your card is smaller, our low VRAM checkpoints guide covers memory saving options, and AMD owners should read the AMD GPU setup guide.
Using LoRAs
Standard SDXL anime LoRAs work with Nova Anime XL, including character LoRAs for consistent fictional adults, style LoRAs, and concept LoRAs. Note that LoRAs trained specifically on Illustrious or Pony may transfer with varying success, since the base differs, so test weights and adjust. Start LoRA weights around 0.6 to 0.8. If you want to train your own consistent adult character, our NSFW LoRA training guide covers the SDXL workflow. Keep the adult framing and safety negatives in place regardless of which LoRAs you load.
How Nova Anime XL compares to the Illustrious family
This is the key question for most people deciding whether to add Nova to their library, since the anime SDXL space is crowded. Here is the honest comparison.
Illustrious XL is the widely adopted base with the deepest ecosystem and the largest library of compatible LoRAs. If you want maximum community support and the most trained add ons, Illustrious is the default. NoobAI XL builds on that lineage with its own training and a strong knowledge of characters and concepts. WAI is a popular Illustrious merge tuned for a polished, appealing look many creators love straight out of the box. Hassaku XL is another well regarded anime checkpoint with its own aesthetic leaning.
Where does Nova Anime XL fit? It is the alternative you reach for when none of those quite nails the specific style you are after. Aesthetics in anime models are subjective, and the differences between these checkpoints come down to face shapes, shading style, colour handling, and line quality. Nova offers a distinct point in that space. The practical advice is simple: if Illustrious or WAI already gives you the look you want, you may not need Nova. But if you have generated across the main models and still feel your preferred style is missing, Nova Anime XL is worth adding to the rotation. For the bigger picture on how these architectures relate, our SDXL vs Pony vs Illustrious comparison maps out the whole anime landscape.
When to pick Nova Anime XL
Choose Nova when its specific aesthetic matches your taste better than the Illustrious family defaults, when you want a fresh alternative for variety in a project, or when a particular render just looks better coming out of Nova than out of your usual model. Because it uses the same tag system, switching between it and the rest of your anime checkpoints costs nothing in relearning, so keeping several in rotation and picking per image is a completely reasonable workflow. Many anime creators do exactly that, generating the same prompt across two or three checkpoints and keeping the best result.
Strengths and limitations
The strengths are a distinct anime aesthetic, full SDXL tooling compatibility, and the familiar booru tag prompting that transfers directly from the rest of the family. The limitations are that, as a newer entry, its LoRA ecosystem is smaller than the mature Illustrious library, and because aesthetic preference is subjective, whether Nova beats your current model is entirely a matter of taste that you have to test for yourself.
Building a good booru tag prompt in practice
Because tag prompting is unfamiliar to people coming from natural language models, it helps to see the structure laid out as a repeatable recipe. Start with your short quality block. Follow it with any style or artist tags you want, since these are your strongest aesthetic lever. Then describe the adult subject with concrete booru tags, working roughly from the person outward: body and framing tags first, then hair and eyes, then expression, then clothing, then pose, then the background and setting. Finish by making the adult framing explicit with tags like mature adult woman and adult proportions near the front of the subject block so the model weights them heavily.
To make this concrete, here is a full booru tag prompt in the recommended order. Positive: masterpiece, best quality, very aesthetic, 1girl, solo, mature adult woman, adult proportions, tall, long wavy red hair, green eyes, confident smile, off shoulder dress, standing, rooftop at night, city lights, cinematic lighting. Negative: child, minor, underage, teen, loli, shota, worst quality, low quality, bad anatomy, bad hands, extra digits, blurry. Notice the short quality block, then 1girl and solo as structural tags, then the adult framing placed early and explicitly, then the descriptive tags working outward from the subject to the setting. Run that at 832×1216, Euler a, 28 steps, CFG 6, clip skip 2, and hires fix at 1.5x. To change the style, add an artist or style tag right after the quality block and watch how strongly the whole render shifts, since that is the single most powerful lever in the anime family.
The reason to front load the adult tags is that tokens earlier in the prompt carry more influence in these models. Putting the adult framing early, and keeping the safety block in the negatives, is the most reliable way to hold the output firmly in adult territory. This is not just a compliance step, it genuinely stabilizes the character design. Anime models respond strongly to these cues, so clear, early, adult tagging changes the output meaningfully.
Tag emphasis works the same way as elsewhere in the ecosystem. You can strengthen a tag with parentheses, for example (adult proportions:1.2), when you want the model to lean harder on it. Use this deliberately on the tags that matter most rather than scattering weights everywhere. Our guide to using Illustrious models goes deeper on booru tag craft, and since Nova shares the system, everything there transfers.
Getting variety across the anime family
One of the most practical ways to use Nova Anime XL is as one option in a small stable of anime checkpoints. Because the prompt syntax is identical across the family, you can write a prompt once and run it through Nova, Illustrious, WAI, and Hassaku, then compare. The same tags produce noticeably different faces, shading, and colour across the models, and Nova’s distinct rendering will either be the one you reach for or not, quickly and obviously. This comparison workflow costs almost nothing in effort and is the single best way to decide where Nova belongs for your style.
Keep the adult framing and safety negatives identical across every model in the comparison. Consistency there matters more than any aesthetic choice, and it should be the one part of the prompt you never vary.
A practical tip for this comparison workflow: fix the seed. Running the identical prompt at the same seed across Nova, Illustrious, and WAI isolates the model as the only variable, so the differences you see are purely the checkpoint’s rendering rather than random variation. Generate the same seeded prompt through each model, place the results side by side, and the distinctions in face shape, line weight, and colour handling become obvious immediately. Once you have picked your preferred model for a given style, you can unfix the seed and batch normally. This seeded side by side is faster and more honest than judging each model from separate random generations, where luck of the seed can mislead you into preferring the wrong checkpoint.
Troubleshooting Nova Anime XL
Most issues are the standard SDXL anime ones. Muddy colour or grey output usually means a missing or wrong VAE, so load the SDXL VAE. Blurry or low detail results often mean the step count or resolution is too low, so confirm you are at 1024 range and around 28 steps. Style tags that do not seem to register may simply not be in the model’s training vocabulary, so try alternatives. If a character concept drifts younger than intended, strengthen the adult tags, move them earlier in the prompt, and confirm the full safety block is present in the negatives. Our NSFW AI troubleshooting guide and, for install issues, the ComfyUI not working fix cover the deeper cases.
A practical starting workflow
Load Nova Anime XL, set 832×1216 for a portrait, Euler a, 28 steps, CFG 6, clip skip 2. Build a booru tag prompt: quality tags, an optional style tag, then your adult subject described with clear adult tags like mature adult woman and adult proportions. Add the quality negative block plus the mandatory safety block: child, minor, underage, teen, loli, shota. Generate a batch, pick the best, and run hires fix at 1.5x for a sharp final. If you also run the same prompt through Illustrious or WAI, you will quickly see whether Nova’s aesthetic is the one you prefer, which is the fastest way to decide where it belongs in your library.
Frequently asked questions
How do I keep Nova Anime XL characters clearly adult?
Always tag subjects as a mature adult woman or adult man with adult proportions, never use youthful or age ambiguous descriptors, and age up every character concept to a clearly adult version, age 18 plus. Include the safety negative block, child, minor, underage, teen, loli, shota, on every single render without exception. This is a hard, non negotiable rule.
Does Nova Anime XL use the same prompting as Illustrious?
Yes. Nova Anime XL uses Danbooru booru tag prompting, the same system as Illustrious, NoobAI, WAI, and Hassaku. You build prompts from comma separated tags: quality tags, optional artist or style tags, then character and subject tags. Your existing anime tag prompting skills transfer directly, so switching between these models costs no relearning.
How much VRAM does Nova Anime XL need?
As an SDXL model it is comfortable on 8GB of VRAM for 1024 generation with hires fix. It runs on 6GB using medvram flags, though hires passes get slower. Below 6GB you rely on offloading and waits grow. 12GB or more gives headroom for LoRA stacks and larger upscales.
Why choose Nova Anime XL over Illustrious?
Choose Nova when its specific aesthetic suits your taste better than the Illustrious family, or when you want a fresh alternative look for variety. Illustrious has the deepest LoRA ecosystem, so if it already gives you the style you want you may not need Nova. Test the same prompt across both to decide.
What sampler is best for Nova Anime XL?
Euler a is a strong choice for anime because it produces clean line art and pleasing colour at 25 to 30 steps with CFG 5 to 7. DPM++ 2M Karras also works well if you prefer its rendering. Both are reliable, so try each and keep whichever suits your style better.
Is Nova Anime XL free?
Yes. Nova Anime XL is a free checkpoint hosted on Civitai. You download the model file once and run it locally with no subscription or per image cost. A free Civitai account with mature content enabled lets you see and download the listing. Compatible SDXL anime LoRAs on Civitai are also free.
Do Illustrious LoRAs work with Nova Anime XL?
They may transfer with varying success, since the base model differs. Standard SDXL anime LoRAs generally load, but LoRAs trained specifically on Illustrious or Pony can behave differently on Nova. Test the weight, start around 0.6 to 0.8, and adjust. For guaranteed results, use LoRAs trained on or tested with Nova, or train your own.
Is Nova Anime XL censored?
No. Nova Anime XL is an uncensored anime checkpoint that handles mature content. It does not refuse adult prompts. Because anime models can drift young, you carry a heightened responsibility to keep every character an explicit adult, tag them with adult proportions, and use the mandatory safety negative block on every render without exception.
