Enter: Tony Dinh’s Lexus IS350 – Part III

April 23, 2014 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

The final part for Tony’s IS350. If anyone knows me by now from reading my blog, it’s that I have a love/hate relationship with rolling shots. I love them because when everything works out perfectly, it’s a great way to end the shoot. On the rare occasion, I’ll get nada for rolling shots and it’s a total bummer sitting at home after the shoot and finding out nothing came out the way I had intended. Sometimes it just happens with bad lighting, traffic, lack of time, etc. However, that’s not the case this time – Tony’s car was fairly straightforward except for the fact that he has the deadliest combination of wheels to paint colour – dark wheels on a light car… But it ended up working nicely!

Overall – it was a fantastic photoshoot for the first one of the year. Looking forward to doing way more because I slacked uber hard last year until the last minute. Not to mention that everybody has something new for 2014 (it sounds like I say that every year – but it’s a good thing). I personally love the attention to quality that is slowly coming our way with people’s builds and it just makes me itch to photograph them all!

Anyways – huge thanks to Tony for coming out as soon as I had messaged him for this photoshoot. It’s a great one to add to the books.

Nice gold and red combo of the Junction produce Tsuna and Fusa.

Diggin the 3000K DRL’s on this too. It was always one of my favourite first mods on my cars as well.

Of course we need another ass shot! Can’t get over how well the lip and and trunk lip go together.

Light/Shadow shot right under the Bow.

Rollers!

This was a great shot of Tony heading into the core.

The lines of the IS at the front quarter all the way to the back are pretty close to the 08 GS. I also loved this shot because it showed how low Tony rolls on a daily basis.

Another with a more monotone look.

Downtown cruising. Peep the Calgary Tower in the back.

And after the shoot chillin.

I love the side profile of the LS with the long wheelbase. It just looks so ridiculously long hahaha

That’s a wrap for Tony’s photoshoot! Hopefully some good ones to come! Punit just got his air install completed by Jackie last night and we got a few more cars just getting ready now to do more shoots!

Enter: Tony Dinh’s Lexus IS350 – Part II

April 22, 2014 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

Part 2! We made our way downtown and JC found a new location we haven’t used before and it ended up being perfect in terms of lighting and shadows. The way that the shots turned out looks like it was at night with strobes but it was actually mid day with the sun beaming down with a few clouds in the sky. The way the overhead walkway was positioned and where the sun was coming from was awesome.

Tony’s car shined at this location because it just worked so well with the overall feel of the surroundings. Kudos to JC for this bad ass spot!

The shots turned out great and this is probably my favourite part of all the sets I will be posting. It shows a lot of the details that I enjoyed about Tony’s car that I think you all will like too. You might have guessed it by now but the rear is my favourite. I’m an ass guy. Ha!

Less talk. More pictures!

A great shot showcasing the lighting that I mentioned earlier. I did little in terms of making his car pop in this shot. Always feels good when a shot turns out just how you wanted it.

A better angle from higher up.

Us chillin on the other side. I’m pretty sure this is where JC started editing his hipster picture of the Bow.

FUUUU so dirty. I’ve been lazy to wash it because there’s been and will continue to be constant construction around my house and it will never stay clean so I will never try.

Another one of my favourite shots. That Wald lip spoiler is to die for. I wish the LS had one… The JP Vizage rear lip compliments it well.

More shadows.

A shot of his tucking.

Dual combined artsy shot.

More of that Wald. Can’t get enough.

And finally a shot of his Wald side skirts. Love the look of these as well…

Last part will go up tomorrow!!! If you’ve been around for a while, you’ll know what’s in part 3 😉

Enter: Tony Dinh’s Lexus IS350 – Teaser

April 20, 2014 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

Today marked my first official photoshoot of the year and I’m glad to say that Tony’s slammed and static IS350 is first to grace the blog for 2014. I remember when I saw him post his car up on Instagram with his TE37’s, I immediately knew I wanted to shoot it. Most that go for this look are bagged, but I think it’s sick and crazy that he’s doing this all on coils.

The weather was awesome, and the rain held out (it said it was going to rain but it didn’t anyway) and we got some good locations for the shots. Thanks again to JC for being the chase car and Diana even joined us for the fun.

I wanted to post the teaser first and post the next three parts a day after each other. This shot happened to be just what I needed for this post…

Stay tuned for tomorrow! The first set goes up!

Photoshop: Wald Black Bison Lexus CT200h

July 26, 2013 / jasonhoang / Leave a comment

Still no new content from me! Kind of a disappointing summer so far in terms of weather and photoshoots. We’ve barely had a summer and any nice weather – it’s like Calgary is slowly turning into Vancouver. Not that I’m complaining cause I could live with rain most of the year over snow. At the very least, that would mean we could still drive our cars here and there. I think in total, we’ve had about a week or two (at best) of actual hot, summer weather. The only summer that I feel like I had was when I was in Los Cabos.

Anyway – there are still tons of things going on and I’m bummed I have to keep ditching because other things keep coming up. I’m hoping I’ll be able to make a photoshoot this weekend for some long overdue content here.

In the meantime, I decided to photoshop the Wald Black Bison CT200h on gold WORK VS-XX’s to help wet his appetite on possible future plans. I personally think that this is the direction VIP is going now and it’s coming fast and furious. People are less afraid to do crazy shit and more willing to spend big bucks on customizing everything from fenders and rear valences to custom control arms, radiused fenders, and creating something completely new from an already existing body kit.Like every other trend out there, we are wanting to follow Japan’s footsteps and we’re always a few years behind. Japan has pretty much perfected the aggressive VIP styling now and if you look at the past Tokyo Auto Salon cars you can see big changes.

Now that most big name VIP companies are introducing aggressive kits, it’s sparking new interest here and I love it. On a side note – in a few short months, there are 4 LS460’s with the some of the most aggressive kits out there. Aimgain VIP GT, Black-Pearl Complete, K-Break Zero Custom, and K-Break Platinum. Before we get to that photoshop, let’s just take a look at the 4 biggest players in the LS community right now.

Nat’s Black-Pearl Complete kit front and rear paired with Wald side skirts and fenders.

Justin’s super fresh LS with the complete Aimgain VIP GT kit. Front is not on yet, but should be soon. Leon Hardiritt Friedens with Futura BBK all around. After fitting the Aimgain fenders, he realized it was actually smaller than stock so his wheels wouldn’t fit anymore. Since the LS460 has such a small market for suspension components, he turned to T-Demand. He not only got T-Demand front control arms… Instead, he just replaced them all. If you know VIP, you know that T-Demand suspension components can almost buy you another used LS… True baller status.

Dat’s newly acquired K Break Zero Custom bumper sitting pretty waiting for paint and install. Rears and sides not in pic.

Justin (also from Hawaii) comes out in full force with the K Break Platinum full kit. He is in the process of extending the side skirts to fit the long wheelbase model since there is no “L” version of the kit.

These are the 4 builds that inspire me to build the LS with the absolute best. Although it’ll be a while till I’m anywhere near their level, they are great builds to follow for sure.

Now onto the photoshop – this is where I feel that Wald did an incredibly good job with the Black Bison kit. The Black Bison kit for the LS is kinda, sorta ugly so I never looked at it again. It’s the perfect mix of aggressive and mild styling – if you want to go aggressive, but hold back a little longer – Wald made this for you. *Cough*JC*cough*.

Amazing rear valence design with quad tips. paint accent and rear fog.

Great side profile that still retains the original lines of the CT without changing much. Wald always does a great job with the side skirts.Finally – the front view. The biggest thing in the VIP community now is to incorporate LED lighting – and lots of it. Individual LED fogs running down the sides of the bumper with an aggressive front opening and side ducts. Still retains CT lines under the headlights and flows right through to the fender and continues to the rear.