Botanica: A Botanical Illustration Style LoRA

Inspired by the earliest and most influential works of botanical illustration, Botanica is a Style LoRA crafted to honor the meticulous artistry found in historical manuscripts such as the Vienna Dioscurides and Gart der Gesundheit. It also draws from the legacies of renowned botanical artists like Maria Sibylla Merian and Pierre-Joseph Redouté. This LoRA aims to capture the delicate, hand-drawn aesthetic and intricate detailing characteristic of these timeless pieces.

Botanica is a project I’ve long wanted to create, and it serves as a natural extension of my previous work, Anatomica. It's been a while, but I've at last completed a version that I'm satisfied enough to post. Version 4.0 (yes, that's quite a jump from v1) is trained only on the works of Maria Sibylla Merian and, therefore, has a more cohesive style. The dataset is also captioned, giving it additional flexibility and making it fun to use for subjects outside of its training data.

Fun fact: Maria Sibylla Merian is from the German branch of the Swiss Merian Family and is related to Matthäus Merian the Elder, the Swiss engraver whose work was used to create the Baroque Cartography style of the Cityscapes LoRA.

Usage

To use the most recent version of the LoRA, use the following settings:

Trigger word: bontanica (I know it's not the same as the name of the LoRA, I didn't want the model to get confused with botánica, the French word for botany).
Other tokens that work well: Obviously, names of herbs, plants, and flowers. Version 4.0 also likes insects, animals, and tokens that describe natural flora and fauna.
Lora Strength: Full Strength (1.0) is recommended, but play with ranges from 0.8 to 1.2

For differences in previous versions, see the version notes below.