Hi Chris,

Someone else that knows better than me can correct me, but it looks like all of the matplotlib imports happen in yt/visualization/_mpl_imports.py.

The only configuration is this line: matplotlib.rc('contour', negative_linestyle='solid') which changes the default linestyle for contour plots.  

Other than that, if you use the Agg backend, you should be able to produce plots that look like yt plots.  I believe yt uses the default fonts and matplotlib colortables (except for the ones in yt/visualization/_colormap_data.py.  If you're trying to make publication quality plots, you may want to take a look at the EPS writer that John Wise wrote (yt/visualization/eps_writer.py) which leverages pyx to make really nice native postscript plots, or look at the various plot types (e.g. the RavenPlot in yt/visualization/plot_types.py).

Personally, if I have to make consistent looking plots, I'd like to be in complete control so I use FixedResolutionBuffers and custom matplotlib scripts.

Hope that helps!

-Nathan