It’s been a pretty slow week online for the most part…I wish I had more event coverage or features and what not to toss up here on The Chronicles but there hasn’t really been any events and the stuff I’m shooting is usually for work. The lack of any major update on the site may make it appear that I am not doing anything and just sitting on my ass, but I’ve actually been pretty busy working on numerous things. In just this month alone, I think I’ve shot about 4-5 cars for work as well as for the site. You won’t see all of it right away because it takes time for them to get published, but believe me, I’ve stayed busy. I’m trying to grind harder than ever this year and get as much work as I can. I just want to be able to have some extra resources so that I can either use it to travel or just to have money in my pocket later on. The site will continue to grow because it’s still a really big part of my everyday life. Even when I don’t update, I am consistently working on ways to improve the site or to add content that you guys want to see. It should be pretty obvious to many of you who have been around for awhile that I’m always trying to make things better, whether it be work, play, or just life in general. I know I’m not the greatest photographer, but I’m still learning and hope to someday be up there with some of the best guys in the industry. Writing comes pretty naturally for me, but even so, I am always looking for ways to make stories more interesting for you guys. There’s no better feeling than getting feedback from a fellow enthusiast who has had their car featured and for them to tell me that I did a good job of telling their story to the world. I’ll never be a “workaholic” by any means but I am most certainly on the grind constantly…

Whenever I have some spare time, I’ve been focused on getting some new merchandise for the Chronicles Storefront as well as for the upcoming SF Wekfest event. Wekfest is undoubtedly one of the biggest events of the year and I will be having a booth there once again so I really wanted to have some new stuff for the supporters of the site…

One new thing that I will be adding that I haven’t had in previous years are these new digital die-cut stickers. I’ve always done my own stickers by myself here at home on my plotter but I thought it would be cool to try something new. These stickers are much easier to apply and much smaller so you can basically slap them on anywhere. One of my favorite designs from the past has always been the Robocop/Unicorn Stickydiljoe.com design so I used it to make these die-cut 4-inch stickers. They were honestly a pain in the ass to cut on my machine back then but since they were being printed this time around, I was able to re-do some of the artwork and added more detail. They were a pretty good seller but I stopped selling them because they were so hard to weed-out and put together. You can see in the pic above that I’ve added little details here and there to make Robocop stand out more. I drew in new lines in his arm and leg area to make it look more like the original Robocop design. Minor details that most wouldn’t notice but hey, I’m a man of details and I think it looks much better now. These will be a lot cheaper than my usual vinyl stickers so make sure to stop by the booth at Wekfest where they will debut and snag a couple of them…

For those of you who haven’t been a Chronicles fan very long, I design and print a new shirt every year. We are heading into the fourth year of The Chronicles, so we are now on the fourth tee. These are limited in production so after the first initial batch, I usually don’t print more unless the demand is great. The version II shirts did really well, so I made a second batch of those as did the Hurt Feelings shirts. For this year’s shirt, I wanted to go back to my roots and went back to the original Chronicles logo. To this day the original logo is still my best selling sticker so it was only appropriate to use it on this year’s shirt…

For the back of the shirt, I’ve added the logos of those whom have contributed to the site the most throughout the years. The three car crews; Phaze2, DPK, and Premium Garage Krew were the ones that built the cars that helped bring attention to this site from the very beginning. People wanted an inside/behind-the-scenes look at what these guys did and they were and remain an essential part of this site’s success. I’m proud to have these guys represented on the back of The Chronicles shirt and I hope you guys support the site by representing these new shirts year-round. They will also debut at SF Wekfest and will come in both black and white versions. You’ll also notice the new “No Rival, No Equal, Est. MMVIII” logo on the back. I’ll elaborate more on it later but it should be pretty self-explanatory…I’m pretty excited about these shirts and I can’t wait to get them back from the company that’s doing my shirts….

On a random note, I went down to the Extreme Dimensions facility yesterday to meet up with Bisi Ezerioha to shoot the Bisimoto 2012 Civic for an overseas publication. This doesn’t really apply to anyone stateside because we don’t get that particular magazine here, but I thought some of the overseas Chronicles fans would get a kick out of this. A UK-based publication known as “Total Honda” wanted to feature Bisi’s Civic in their magazine and hit me up to shoot it. I’ve never done anything for any other overseas mag so I thought it would be cool to try it out. I’m pretty familiar with the car and communicate with Bisi regularly so I was the right guy for the job. They wanted to put the car on the cover and wanted to post a little teaser on their Facebook page so I shot the car, came home and processed the photo, and sent them the image that I felt would be good as a cover image. I’ve never shot a cover before so it was pretty cool to have the opportunity to do it. The people over at Total Honda seem really nice and enthusiastic about working with me so we will see how that plays out in the future…

Here’s a behind-the-scenes pic from the shoot yesterday. Extreme Dimensions has a huge lot with a lot of industrial buildings surrounding it so it made for a cool backdrop…

I was pretty surprised by how quickly they put the cover image together, but here is what they put up today on their Facebook page. It’s still a mock-up image so some changes will be made before it goes to print, but I think it looks good so far…

Not bad, right? Again, we don’t get that publication here in the states so you guys won’t see the feature later on, but I think there are ways to order single issues from them if you were really interested in checking it out. For you guys overseas that do get the magazine, I believe this issue drops on February 23rd, so stop by your local newstand or wherever you guys get magazines from and support my ass as well as Total Honda Magazine….

Thanks for looking…