Some other information and links I have come across....
I recommend launching the SD Web UI (automatic1111) with the following argument for better performance:
--xformers
This site has a lot of tutorials about SD, from technical explanation to how to do different things:
https://stable-diffusion-art.com/
I also have been having good success with textual inversion, hypernetworks, and LoRAs. These three are also much easier to make yourself on a budget, compared to checkpoints.
For text inversion, check out theally's releases.
https://civitai.com/models/3485/princess-style
https://civitai.com/models/2289/psycho-style
https://civitai.com/models/1998/autumn-style
https://civitai.com/models/2032/empire-style
I think my favorite hypernet right now for interesting results is Luisa's Magiclight.
https://civitai.com/models/4077/luisap-magiclight
As cool as LoRAs are, I don't have any favorites to recommend but I do suggest checking out rentry's training guide
https://rentry.org/lora_train
p.s. don't get pickled! Always use SAFETENSORS for security reasons.