Stardew Valley Portrait Mod: A Complete Guide

Stardew Valley involves a lot of NPC interactions. You are talking to this person on one day, chatting with your significant other the next. The point is that you spend a lot of time interacting with character portraits.

Eventually, you might get tired of the same style, the same hair, the same pixels. If that’s the case, it might be time to download some portrait mods.

This guide will cover everything you need to know about portrait mods, including how to find them, how to download them, and what they even do in the first place.

What Is The Stardew Valley Portrait Mod?

As you surely know, a text box will appear when you interact with the different characters in Stardew Valley. Next to the text box is a character portrait. These NPC portraits help bring a bit of personality to the in-game sprites, as there isn’t any voice acting to carry that load.

These character portraits are consistent with the Stardew Valley art style, showing a more detailed version of the characters you see walking around.

However, if you’re bored with the typical portrait art style or simply want different sprites, you can look into Stardew Valley portrait mods.

These mods overhaul the portraits of every character in the game, allowing for some creativity in interacting with them.

Now, let’s get into how to install some of these portrait mods.

How To Install Portrait Mods

Note: This guide will cover how to install portrait mods on the Steam version of Stardew Valley.

If you’d like to install portrait mods, you first need to install the Stardew Valley mod manager, SMAPI. This guide will cover the entire process.

How to Install SMAPI

SMAPI is a required download to make your game compatible with most mods, including portrait mods.

Start by creating an account on Nexus Mods, as you need an account to download files from it.

To download SMAPI, navigate to the link above and click on Files.

On the Files page, click Manual Download.

From here, click Slow Download. The download will start.

Once downloaded, open the folder and click install on Windows.

This will launch the SMAPI installer.

Follow the installation instructions. When you’re done installing it, copy this text:

Next, right-click Stardew Valley in Steam and click Properties.

In the Launch Options text box, paste the text from the installer.

Find a Portrait Mod to Download

With the modding API installed, you can visit a few websites when searching for a portrait mod to download. For this article, we’ll be using Nexus Mods.

Now, it’s time to install a specific mod. We’re going to install Portraiture for this example — a mod that lets you manage different character portraits on the fly.

1. Navigate to Nexus Mods

Navigate to the Nexus Mods website. Then, click on Stardew Valley in the list of top games.

2. Search for Portrait

In the search bar up above, type Portrait.

Initially, a list of portrait mods will appear. It’s best to hit Enter, however, as this will take you to a complete list of portrait mods.

3. Choose Portraiture

Browse the available portrait mods until you find Portraiture. Then, click on it.

4. Select Files

Just like before, choose Files to get to the download page.

5. Select Manual Download

Click on Manual Download to download the mod.

6. Select Slow Download

Make sure to select Slow Download. Unless you have a premium NexusMods account, of course.

7. Save The Mod in Your Mods Folder

You need to save the mod in a specific folder: C:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Stardew Valley\Mods. Note that this file may be in a different drive on your computer. Make sure to install it on the drive you have Stardew Valley installed on.

8. Extract The Mod

Once downloaded, unzip the mod folder within Stardew Valley’s Mods folder.

From here, SMAPI should automatically pick up the portrait mod upon launching the game.

After installing SMAPI, make sure to install the content patcher as well. This allows the game to load new images, files, and other add-ons without overwriting its xnb files. Essentially, it keeps the game’s old files in there in case you ever want to remove your mods.

Now, it’s time to install other portrait mods using these same steps.

Here are a few examples of popular portrait mods for Stardew Valley.

Popular Stardew Valley Portrait Mods

Villagers Anime Portrait Mod

The Villagers Anime Portrait mod modifies the in-game character sprites to look more, well, anime.

This mod updates the sprite sheet for most of the villagers in the game, providing you with anime portraits to spruce up your typical conversations.

Fisharia Anime Portraits

The Fisharia Anime Portraits mod is another anime-focused overhaul that provides you with more cartoony character portraits.

As with the previous mod, this will drastically change how your conversations look. Even better, thanks to the Portraiture mod from earlier, you can swap between these anime offerings at will.

Einari’s Portraits Mod

Einari’s Portraits Mod offers a different take on the game’s characters. These sprites are much more detailed in a different way than the original ones, which is great if you’re looking for a change of pace.

Now that you know how to download the Stardew Valley mod manager and alter your game’s character portraits, why not experience these alternate conversations with some friends?

If you’re looking to play Stardew Valley online, NameHero has you covered. Our servers support up to 32 players, providing you with multiple layers of DDOS protection, free server migration, and a ton of RAM to support these portrait mods and more.

For more information on NameHero’s Stardew Valley servers, click here.