Monday, November 29, 2010

My stance on "Stance"

I have been in the scene for what I consider to be a decent amount of time, 8 years, however I've been a car enthusiast since a little boy.  In my 8 years of being in the scene, mainly the Japanese and VW/Audi groups, I have seen a number of trends come up over the years, from the body-kitted Fast & Furious days, to the DTM/Euro look, the JDM craze, and the less-is-more Euro look, I have seen enough to know what happens to trends.  The trend that has caught the spotlight as of late is unarguably the stance and Hellalfush trend.  In the last few years, the stance scene has gained a lot of momentum and no one can stop talking about it.

Of course, there are two main groups in every trend like this; those that love it, support and embrace it, and those that absolutely hate it.  I have seen a lot of the trends over the years, but I have yet to see one that has such an adamant group of haters.  It's kind of funny at times to see how passionate these people are about being so negative about a trend that they go out of their way to say their two-cents about it.  Instead of keeping their mouths shut, they speak up about how dumb they think the whole fitment game is and how it is "unsafe" and counter-active to modifying a vehicle.  Some helpful words here:  attention, whether good or bad, is still attention.

Thing is, for all you haters out there, the stance and fitment movement is here to stay.  It's not going anywhere and is only growing stronger each day.  The fact is, with all these trends that have popped up, none have really gone anywhere.  You may say the body-kit era and JDM fads have all gone, but they really haven't, they have just evolved and changed.  Body-kits haven't gone away and neither has tuning cars in the JDM fashion.  Cars are still rocking body-kits and adding JDM touches here and there, just in a different manner now that still captures just as much attention, just in a different way.  The same thing goes for the stance movement.  It will change, most definitely, but it is never going to go away.

More and more sites and groups are popping up that support the movement with the "originators" still leading the way, sites like Hellaflush, Stanceworks, and Stance Nation setting the standards for others to follow, learn from and build upon.  More and more shows and events are being organized which are centered around stance and fitment.  The movement is only growing with more people coming to embrace it and see it as another form of tuning.  Contrary to what most naysayers believe, it's not easy to get a car sitting low with the perfect fitment.  There's a lot of suspension work and calculating wheel offsets and tire sizes.  It's far more difficult than just getting a set of coils, winding them down, bolting up a set of wheels and hoping for the best.

Now, I'm not trying to come off as some know-it-all, or some sort of "prophet" for the stance scene.  I'm just some enthusiast who is taking his experience from being in the game for a good amount of time and voicing my opinion on the movement.  I understand the scene and live within it, love it and embrace it, yet I still appreciate a car that's setup for road-racing or drag racing, and give credit where credit is due.  I guess every successful group will have its share of haters, and we all deal with it.  So, to the haters, keep on hating!  Stance and fitment aren't going anywhere!  Everyone else, keep it low and clean....

Kaien and Howlie

Well, it has been awhile since I have updated anything.  I apologize for that, but there have been a lot of big changes going on mainly centered around a new job and doing a lot of photography work.  I've also been drawn back into organizing events for a few local, automotive groups next year so I do have a lot on my plate.

What I wanted to share here though is some progress on my fursuits.  Yeah, plural, as in two, heh.  My first suit is being made by Syber at Made Fur You which should be done sometime in the month of December.  I'm very excited to see her take on my fursona.  In the interim, I met a wonderful wuffy named Kio.  We sparked it off since we both share an interest in cars to find out that he is a rather talented fursuit builder as well.  He was open for commissions so I had him make me a head.  What he turned out is amazing.  The quality and functionality are superb.  I'm eagerly awaiting my second slot to come up so he can finish the rest of the suit to accompany his head.


Visit Kio's FA here:  Kio Wolf on FA

Another big piece of news is my bf Howlie's new head was finished by Fursuiting.com, so now his fursuit is complete again.  We spent the holiday together and took some pictures together: