Just saw this thread and figured id weigh in since i deal with the same plastic issues on high-end prints for book covers. If your local hardware is stalling, you really need to look at cloud compute to maintain that professional edge without the midjourney sheen. I've been extremely satisfied with using dedicated cloud instances to run heavy workflows that a 3060 just cant handle. For the dark fantasy textures you're after, I recommend a few specific setups:

• Stability AI Stable Diffusion 3.5 Large accessed through a cloud API. It handles cloth, metal, and skin textures with much more grit than MJ.
• RunPod NVIDIA A40 48GB VRAM Instance for running ComfyUI workflows. Having 48GB of VRAM allows for massive Tiled Diffusion upscaling which kills the blurry background problem instantly.
• Topaz Photo AI 3.0 for the final pass on your covers. It is basically magic for recovering fine grain and micro-textures that AI usually smoothes over. The $50 budget is plenty for this. You can spin up a RunPod 1-Click ComfyUI Template for less than fifty cents an hour. Honestly, the control you get over lighting and noise levels when you arent fighting a proprietary aesthetic filter is night and day. Works well for my UK clients who usually want that grittier, more tactile feel rather than the shiny stock photo look... no complaints so far with this pipeline.

Over the years I've benchmarked most models and that 'plastic' skin is basically a MJ v6 trait you can't prompt away. Moving my gritty cover work to Ideogram 2.0 Plus really saved my sanity. It produces a much more natural, matte texture for dark fantasy projects. Prompt accuracy for complex lighting is way more consistent too. Best part is it's cloud-based, so no more chugging on that 3060.

> everything looks like plastic or has weird blurry backgrounds Ive been very happy with Leonardo. Just get any plan from them and youll be satisfied; the way they handle lighting data is basically superior for fantasy stuff.

Honestly, if your 3060 is chugging, stop fighting local installs. Over the years I've tried every major model, and Black Forest Labs FLUX.1 [pro] is the only thing beating that Midjourney plastic look right now.

• Use Fal.ai FLUX.1 [dev] for the base images to save your hardware.
• Run the finals through Magnific AI Upscaler and Enhancer to fix any blur. It handles dark fantasy textures way better than MJ ever could.

Regarding what #6 said about "Just saw this thread and figured id weigh in..." - theyre spot on about the cloud stuff. If youre tired of the MJ glow and your 3060 is struggling, id suggest looking into Krea AI. Their enhancer tool is actually insane for fixing that plastic skin texture and it adds back some of that grit youre probably missing for a dark fantasy London setting. Another sleeper hit is Freepik Mystic. Its built on a different architecture than the usual MJ or SD clones and handles lighting in a much more cinematic, less AI way. Costs about $24 a month so youll have money left over. Since youre on a tight deadline, maybe also throw some credits into RunPod RTX 4090 Instance for a day or two? You can run a heavy ComfyUI setup there for pennies an hour. No more hardware bottlenecks, and you get the professional grain and texture you need for those covers... worth a shot anyway.

Re: "Honestly, if your 3060 is chugging, stop fighting..." - preach! I went through the same thing trying to optimize my local setup and honestly it was just a headache. I'm not some tech wizard, so I just want stuff that works without me needing to code or buy a new rig. I've been really satisfied with using Ideogram for my recent projects... I was skeptical cuz I thought it was just for typography, but the realism in their 2.0 update is actually legit. It handles those gritty textures you need for dark fantasy way better than MJ v6 imo. A few things I noticed that made me stick with it:

• Skin and metal textures dont have that weird oily AI shine as much.
• It handles complex layout prompts without getting confused about where objects go.
• It's all cloud-based, so my poor 3060 can finally take a nap. I'm on the Ideogram 2.0 Pro Plan and it's well under that $50 limit you mentioned. For the blurry backgrounds, I usually just do a quick pass in Adobe Photoshop 2024 Generative Fill to sharpen or extend things if the AI gets a bit lazy. It's a pretty simple combo that hasn't let me down yet and saved me a ton of time... definitely worth a look if you're on a deadline and need that high-res finish without the plastic look.

Solid advice 👍

Can vouch for this