Plastic Model Mojo
Plastic Model Mojo, a podcast dedicated to scale modeling, as well as the news and events around the hobby
Plastic Model Mojo
Just Build It: A Double Spotlight on Liang Models and Upcoming Huntsville Show
An unexpected journey from Hong Kong to Texas formed the backbone of Adam Coleman's story as he recounts how discovering airbrush stencils abroad eventually led him to become the North American distributor for Liang Models. What began with worn-out stencils and an email inquiry transformed into a passionate business venture connecting Chinese manufacturing innovation with the American modeling community.
Coleman walks us through the fascinating evolution of Liang, founded in 2019 by architect and senior modeling judge Yusheng Liang. Their product line has expanded to approximately 90 items across three core categories: vinyl airbrush stencils, specialized modeling tools, and diorama accessories. The Zimmerit tools rank as their bestsellers, but newer innovations like the centered hole driller and handle bender showcase the thoughtful engineering behind each product.
What distinguishes Liang from competitors is their commitment to education. Each product features a QR code linking to instructional videos, making complex techniques accessible to modelers of all skill levels. Coleman's distribution philosophy prioritizes geographic exclusivity for brick-and-mortar retailers while supporting online vendors in different regions, creating a collaborative rather than competitive marketplace.
The episode then pivots to an exciting preview of the 48th annual Huntsville Plastic Model Society show scheduled for August 23rd. Tom Clark details how this well-established event has evolved to embrace emerging trends like Gundam modeling with expanded categories. With 62 vendor tables already sold out, food trucks (including milkshakes!), and proximity to the famous Space and Rocket Center, the show delivers a complete modeling experience for attendees.
Whether you're interested in discovering innovative new modeling tools or planning to attend what promises to be an outstanding show in Alabama, this episode provides valuable insights into the ever-evolving world of scale modeling. Ready to expand your modeling toolkit or submit an entry to test your skills against fellow enthusiasts? The opportunities await!
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Mike and Kentucky Dave thank each and everyone of you for participating on this journey with us.
all right, dave. How about a spotlight double bill? That sounds great, man, I'm telling you I'm I'm up for that well, folks, tonight we've got, uh, one vendor and we've got one show to spotlight. I think we just need to get right into it, dave, because we're running out of time for the national convention.
Kentucky Dave:I know We've got some packing to do buddy.
Mike:Well, dave, we've got an unusual vendor spotlight this time. Normally we're dealing with folks who have a retail customer-facing business, but tonight we've got Mr Adam Coleman, our favorite Aussie from Texas, with us, who is the current US representative for Liang. Adam, how are you doing tonight?
Adam Coleman:Hey, good evening gentlemen. Thanks for the invite.
Kentucky Dave:Good evening, adam. And isn't Aussie from Texas kind of redundant, because Aussies are the Texas of the Commonwealth?
Adam Coleman:People ask me if I'm from the deep South, and I guess I am there you go.
Mike:Well, Adam, you've been a longtime listener and supporter of the show and when you handed this nugget that you'd become the US representative for Liang, we want to get you on, give you a chance to promote what you got going on and see if we can support you in one way. So why don't you let us know how that came about and what Liang is and what you do?
Adam Coleman:Absolutely Well from my standpoint. You know I'm a pretty entrepreneurial guy. I've got lots of little things going on, but I've been a modeler all my life, right, and I've also done a lot of travel in my life. Long story short, I was in Hong Kong and in one of the many, many stores that they have there, where it's impossible to get past the front counter without seeing a stack of models to the ceiling, I picked up several airbrush stencils. This was back in 2019. And I thought these look interesting and I thought, okay, well, this is a high cool factor, I've got to have these, and so I used them. This was 2019, through about 2022.
Adam Coleman:I used them and you know, of course, they're not made to last forever, but if you take care of them, they will last a long time, and I eventually just wore mine out and I thought, okay, well, that's fine, I'll find I had still had the original wrappers. I thought I'm going to go online find out where to locate these, and I guess I can't find anywhere. I'm up with all the same retail sites and online people as everyone else and all the listeners are. I'm sure couldn't find it anywhere and I thought all right, so I emailed their website I think that was in July and never got a reply until November.
Adam Coleman:And I got a reply and they said, oh, it's not available. You know we don't have anybody in the US. And I said, well, that's easy, I've got my own couple of llcs, I'll take care of it. I know, I know the industry, I know who the players are. I'm pretty outgoing. If you can't tell, and and uh, I'll get it up and going and uh. But I want sole distributor suit for north america and we had a couple of.
Adam Coleman:If you don't, you know, if you don't ask, you don't get right so we, uh, we had a couple of skype calls, which were, which were really fun. You know that the one person on their side speaks some, some english fairly well. We know each other and I don't speak any mandarin, of course and we, um, we, we, you know, but we both know. We both knew when we were understanding each other and when maybe there was still some clarity. So what happened was, in Europe, mick Jimenez that we all know. He's the distributor for Europe for the products, and I ended up with the distributorship for North America. So that was in late 2022 when we got that going, and really the process has been to educate and find retailers, and find online retailers as well that will carry the product and obviously just grow it and look for year over year growth in terms of volume, but also bringing new products to market all the time.
Kentucky Dave:Now, have you ever before been involved with the model slash hobby business I mean, other than as a modeler?
Adam Coleman:Yes.
Kentucky Dave:Is this your first foray into the business side of the hobby?
Adam Coleman:Yeah, I mean, you know I'm pretty adaptable. I guess that's a pretty big leap. I've got other business interests that I have which have similar types of cycles and volumes to them, and one of those is related to sporting goods, another one is related to some government liaison work and plus I have my own regular full-time job anyway. So these are all just things that I like to do, and what best way to have your occupation sort of parallel your hobby, right? I thought, okay, I can do that Absolutely.
Kentucky Dave:Now is Liang purely a manufacturer.
Adam Coleman:So Liang is out of, actually just outside of Beijing. The company started in 2019, and they're doing all the manufacturing, obviously, of the tools and stencils and all of the various new components and items that come out, and then the boxes that they're all housed in are also out of the same place, and all of the design is really from Yusheng Liang, who's a young guy, very experienced modeler. He's an architect by trade, and Yusheng is one of the senior judges, for it's not called IPMS in China, but essentially the same organization, and so he's the one who got it up and going. He has a VP of international sales, who's the one I deal with, who speaks English, who actually is the mother, would you believe, so she's happy to see her son doing well. So really, it grew from very, very humble days in 2019 and right up to now, where we're carrying, where we offer for retailers around about 90 different products.
Kentucky Dave:Now, did you find much friction in the Now and maybe this has changed recently with the new administration and issues regarding tariffs and all that. But as far as just generally doing business with a Chinese manufacturer and becoming their North American distributor, was there much friction in paperwork to paperwork to obtain the products, to clear customs, to do all that stuff?
Adam Coleman:yeah, so so we, we could talk about it. Um, you know bt, and at right before trump and after trump, um, so just before trump, there is a thing called the de minimis exemption. I'm not sure you've ever heard of that. So the United States is very. I do a lot of international travel and the United States is very lucky in that the customs threshold for incoming product is $800, right, and most countries in the range of $100 to $200. So that gives you an idea of how valuable this is.
Adam Coleman:So what happened was through the early part of this year, or prior to early part of this year, the diminutives exemption was alive and well and that had no interference with doing any business. So when a retailer contacts me and we make sure that everything is good for their order, just like anything else, there's an email sent, there's a verification on the Chinese side that it's received, that all the items are available, in stock or in production, and then usually within 24 hours, I get shipping notification and that will be in the form of, you know, dhl, fedex, any of the big ones and with the tracking, and I provide that to the retailer. Up until the early part of this year, would you believe the turnaround time was about seven days from Beijing to anywhere in the United States. When they placed an order. It was that quick.
Kentucky Dave:When you were working with a hobby retailer, would you structure the order to try and make sure that it came in under the de minimis exception?
Adam Coleman:No, not at all. In that case, I mean, I haven't had it yet where we've actually exceeded the exemption. What's happened sometimes is that we've had an order and then a couple of weeks later, you know, they said, oh, we need some more of these, no problem, and of course, with a one week delay it really wasn't a problem. So I guess, more to luck than anything else, we haven't hit the de minimis exemption on any orders. So anyway, that was the way it was through the early part of this year. Then, of course, there was that sort of turbulence that went on in March and I was sort of getting it from because two of my other business operations are actually related, out of China and Hong Kong actually. So I was sort of getting information about how that was playing out. I was checking back and forth, of course, with Liang as to what they were hearing, because they were to a certain extent just as in the dark as sometimes we were. But long story short is that that probably paused things for about a 10-day, two-week period. But to me it didn't matter too much because just before then there was actually some big orders go out. Everyone had stock. So I didn't matter too much because just before then there was actually some big orders go out. Everyone had stock, so I didn't see it. In other words, there wasn't a blip for supply.
Adam Coleman:However, I know from other industries and certainly in a couple of cases, other modelers, modeling retailers, right.
Adam Coleman:They certainly suffered some turbulence as that all settled.
Adam Coleman:But the bottom line now is that by the end of that month, which was March, china had figured out a way to ship the product certainly my stuff and with none of the tariffs or any of that stuff coming through in any way, shape or form, and it's taking now, instead of seven days, it probably takes 11 to work its way through.
Adam Coleman:I don't know how they resolve that on the Chinese side, but up until the first part of this year in the industries that I'm familiar with, the Chinese government gave rebates and subsidies back on volumes for shipping and whether or not the distributor or the seller or the manufacturer took that as an accrual and they would just you know every time they did a production they were shipping a large quantity internationally, they would take an allowance off. That I don't know. But the bottom line here is that I'm really proud to say that with Liang, since I've been involved in it. There's been no price increases for the retailers and consequently the recommended retail price guidelines for the retailers is pretty much on them and everyone has worked really, really well together with it Basically.
Kentucky Dave:you're saying that the only difference between before and what you're experiencing now is about three or four more days of ship time from China to the US. That's correct.
Adam Coleman:There was also a couple of Liang items which are not, which are. If you look online internationally, you can find and they were just in the process of getting those approved for the United States and for Canada, and those two are pretty straightforward. One of them is the they call it the Zimmerit putty, and there's another one there's actually one called sandbags which are basically flexible sandbags that you can mould around a shape right, so you want to put them on the front of a tank or on a building or on a land feature. And there's something about and I'm not up on my Mandarin for this, but there's something about the chemical makeup of those which has not been approved for the US. Occasionally, certainly, I get calls and emails about it and I tell people what I would do in terms of a substitution.
Adam Coleman:But that was in process and rather than sort of raise a red flag or anything on that, china just said, oh, we're just not going to do it for North America at the moment. So that's been the only interruption. But I understand, you know, for everybody, right from modelers right through to retailers and suppliers. I mean the ambiguity that went on through the month of March from my standpoint, from Leanne's standpoint has essentially been resolved and it's been really exciting to see you know, because I can tell to a certain extent when retailers order, like how things are going, and I mean it's been just great. So you know, thumbs up.
Kentucky Dave:Well, my understanding is, even established companies to me apparently had a problem with their white primer in Canada. They must have reformulated it or they did something that changed the chemical formulation and it needed to be re-cleared for shipment into Canada and caused it to disappear in Canada for some short period of time. I think they've cleared that all up. So even old line companies when it comes to products containing chemical mixtures, that's a different processed and say, shipping over a pair of tweezers.
Adam Coleman:Yeah, that's right, there's things on both sides of the fence to have to get worked on. The products, as I said, the product line now is just around about 90 items that are available for Liang. And you know, on an international level I can see that, you know the best sellers, I can see what's moving, I can see what's not moving and then it's pretty fascinating actually how products hit a market like that and then there'll be surges of movement. The most popular product that we sell is the Zimrit tools. I'm not sure if you've seen those, but zimmerit tool, yeah, they come with a, they come suitable for 72nd, 35th and I think 48 scale as well.
Adam Coleman:Um, and there's a basic set which has all of the, the essential tools, and then there's a um, an upgrade set which has more complicated patterns and things like that. Those, those internationally for Liang, are the popular, the number one and two ranking. But then again, you know, someday someone could be looking for, you know, a set of lampposts that they have to have right, and they'll reach out to me or whatever and I say, ah, yeah, I know who's got that. Talk to you know so-and-so and they will. You know, last I remember they had some and you usually find that out which is really fun to do to help people. I'm an altruist by nature, so I love doing that kind of thing.
Mike:Well, you know you've got a 90 product, 90-ish product line and they kind of run from. You know some tools and then these stencils that kind of got them started. One thing that's interesting with liang is is the the support side of particularly their website. There's a lot of videos and how-tos on there that I think are interesting, and can you speak to that a little bit? I mean, these tools are. Some of them are self-explanatory, some are not. You mentioned the zimmerit tools and, and you know, you can do the kind of, uh, the corrugated patterns with those, you can do the waffle patterns with those, just some really neat things what it comes down to is.
Adam Coleman:The product line varies between three core areas. The most commonly known one is the stencils. They're very popular. There's there's 12 stencils in this in the set right. They're very popular. There's 12 stencils in the set right now. They're a vinyl stencil. They're flexible. If you use them with acrylics they'll last much longer.
Adam Coleman:I think we have a video on the website which shows one stencil being reused I want to say 12 times and in the 12 times it's scrunched up in a ball and it's laid flat. It shows you how to clean it, how to make it flat again, then so, and then all of those. Of course, they can be cut right so you can cut for different shapes if you need to, and then, uh, put them back on. But stencils are very, very, very much the bread and butter, and I, you know, I obviously I look at lots of other stencils out there as well and different designs, but we've been pretty happy with ours and certainly the demand for them is right up there.
Adam Coleman:The second thing that is within the product line of the three is related to modelling tools, and that's where Yusheng Liang really shines. I mean, his design, theories and ideas are very exceptional. There's a couple of new items that have come out in the last few months. One of them is a handle bender, and for those of you that build armor, obviously you know getting handles right, certainly at any scale, is difficult. Well, this handle bender will do all of that very, very easily. It's a simple tool to use. There's another one just released called the centered hole driller.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah, that one looks interesting.
Adam Coleman:Yeah, amazing piece of engineering. And you know we talk about trying to get accurate drilling holes on different items. Well, there's the tool for it, but there's some others as well. But the general thing of the tools has been to educate on the use. And what you find on most Liang products is that there is a QR code and if the person is in the store or they're looking at it, they can simply just do the QR code check with their phone and that takes them to the education video and or the instructions of that particular item, and that's proven to be very, very helpful there, for obvious reasons.
Adam Coleman:The third line of product is related more to supporting dioramas and things like that. There's multiple different goodness knows. There's all kinds of leaf sets. Who knew right that we have a summer one, a summer two, a autumn one, and they're all a little bit different. But there's a fantastic video of how to use the leaf stencil set or the leaf set, and I mean, you know I'm not a big diorama builder but I looked at that and I thought that's incredible. And so you're right about the education aspect of it and I think that the way the videos are structured are obviously for an international audience. So we we have obviously English ones available, but you know there's it's pretty obviously visit visually what's going on.
Adam Coleman:So again, that's the three core areas. There, education is huge and imagination is huge, and that's again where you shan is is very, very good. So you know, with the latest products, the center hole driller, like I said, and there's another one it's called a chainsaw tool set. You know who makes chainsaws in 135th? Nobody, nobody right. And little things too, which I think are really really well done, which impressed me from the beginning. For example, there's a laptop set and there's a dozen laptops 1, 35th scale in the laptop set, but inside the box is also the decals to put the screens on them. Yeah, I saw that, you know. It's just a great touch and that's what I think is really which, just as I said, it impressed me from the beginning with Liang and the fact that you know they were willing enough, as they wanted to grow internationally.
Adam Coleman:They knew that they wanted to get up and running in North America, but they needed somebody that had probably some experience in business, because it's not just about getting the product in right. I mean, you have to educate the retailer. You have to educate on cost, shipping, gross margin, net margin, things like that right, the person that you're supplying. They may have their own criteria for how they go about perhaps managing their website. So whether they wanted a dozen of a particular item behind the scenes and I think some of them when you look on their websites it will show you how many are in stock and things like that, and some others don't do that.
Adam Coleman:But generally that's what I find really really helpful. I've got one particular customer who's a retailer in Oklahoma and he will call and he has questions about the product, which are really really good questions, and he wants to know that because when people ask him he wants to be able to fill that information in. So there's a role there. The online presence is really strong. Thanks for the feedback on the videos. And then, obviously, having somebody that can be reached not necessarily 24-7, but pretty close to it can help retailers right away.
Kentucky Dave:I wanted to ask you about that. Retailers right away. I wanted to ask you about that. The flip side of dealing with Liang is dealing with hobby retailers in North America. How's your experience been? I mean, you know we all hear that brick and mortar retailers are dying, et cetera, et cetera. What's been your experience in marketing the liang products to the north american hobby retailers?
Adam Coleman:yeah, absolutely good question, the um. The key thing is that in anything, uh, like this, the individual, that's, the retailer, has to have an imagination. They have to an imagination that's realistic. So you know there are some that I sell to that will tell you their product to their SKU, right storekeeping unit, the actual UPC, the SKU movement of a particular item. You know on a seven-day basis, 21-day basis. They know that they can forecast their ordering basis 21-day basis. They know that they can forecast their ordering Very, very sophisticated.
Adam Coleman:I've got it in one particular case. I have access to their backend so I can see what's going on right, which is really helpful. So you've got that degree of sophistication within the business in North America. Maybe not every online retailer is doing that, but certainly I know of one that has that level of work going on, and I come from that background professionally, so I get it. I understand, I can usually digest the information fairly easily.
Adam Coleman:And then, when you go down to brick and mortar, what I find most commonly is because I'm making the call, right, I'm calling them up cold and saying look, you know, I know you've got IPMS clubs there. I'm familiar with the following, you know, et cetera, and invariably, I would say, you know, eight times out of 10, four times out of five, the person will say, yeah, I'm really, I've heard about these. How does it all work? Right, and, of course, take them through my, my sort of 60 second pitch of look, you know, you're going to, you're going to do this, you can send it to me, you can text it to me, I'll put it as an order, I just need your thumbs up on it. It's going to come to you 10 or 11 days later, and then 10 or 11 days later, and then you know, go from there.
Adam Coleman:So I think I've been fairly choosy about that. I kind of. I mean, I'll say this I didn't want to have two competitive retail brick and mortar stores in the same city. I wanted one of them to have it right, gotcha, and so I have my own personal controls on that. Where I so, for example, can I, can I say some retailer names if you wish.
Adam Coleman:Okay, so, so, for example, in san antonio, hill country hobby. You know there are other hobby stores in that market, but, um, you know, dave, david smith has that. That san antonio, that's where li Liang is available. Right In Austin, lionheart Hobby Rudy, actually, who was the first customer. Rudy has all of that patch.
Adam Coleman:In DFW there's one store called Texas Toy Soldier which is more of a 3D wargaming store but it's got a huge 3D aspect to it and all of the typical paints that you see in a hobby store. It's not a model building store, even though they have all of the materials except the model kits. You know that's the one place in dfw where all the liang stuff is available because those 3d models still use the tools. They still gonna, they're still gonna, they're still gonna airbrush, they're still gonna do all that. So you know, I've kept it kind of like that. I don't ever want to like Oklahoma City Black Widow Models, jim and Connie over there. They have that patch that's theirs. If there's another hobby store in town I don't think there is, I'm not going to. You know, give that away.
Kentucky Dave:So Liang didn't put any constraints on you as far as that goes them an exclusivity that gives them a little bit of a marketing edge in their modeling area.
Adam Coleman:Absolutely, that was totally my call. The only criteria that comes out of the Yang and that was actually this is a good thing was I got to see, for example, what MIGS costs are right for their products. I got to see what the Japanese there's a Japanese retailer, oh sorry, japanese distributor I got to see what their prices were, because, obviously, for the purpose of the business, we have to be somewhat consistent around that. So that was the only criteria for them and they were very good, offering all of that up to me and I could look at it, and when we agreed on our costings, we were all completely right in line. I mean, all those typical Excel spreadsheets translate in Mandarin for everybody. So that was good. So that was good, so no, but anything in you know.
Adam Coleman:So there are some online stores right that carry Liang, but that's a little bit of a different aspect than the brick and mortar. The brick and mortar is going to be me selecting the city and knowing and trusting the retailer and moving it on from there. The online is a little different because they have a different cycle of product movement and also, too, I think we'd all agree that each of the online retailers have somewhat of a different focus they're not all the same right and how they go about their business. So there's several onlines that I work with, but all of those in fact, what is it? One, two, there's four or five, and each one of those is in a different geographic region. They don't overlap with each other. At least I understand the notion of postage, but generally you know there's an intention there that they're all going to support each other on similar pricing. But at least they get from me and at the same time, you know it helps the product movement because one person will take a big delivery.
Adam Coleman:I support all the products by online marketing. I support all the products by online marketing. So you know, when there is a big delivery, come in at I don't know at Burbank's House of Hobbies. I go online with that, but I do the same thing for Coastline Hobbies in North Carolina or Kitlinks or Michigan Toy Soldier. I do the same thing for them as well. So there's a two-way street there of like. I'm going to support you, no matter what. It's up to you to sell the product. Yeah, so that's part of the life of being a distributor, right?
Kentucky Dave:Are you doing any presentations of Liang products like at either model contests, model shows or at the more high-level hobby business conventions?
Adam Coleman:Again, another good point. So I do presentations in markets, obviously. I've done DFW, because I'm here. I've done Las Vegas as well, which was very good. We have two retailers Brick and Mortar in Las Vegas. One is in Las Vegas itself, it's Hobby Island just off the strip, and the other one is called Hobby One Japan. It's over in Henderson, probably 15 miles away from you know a different city completely, and that's a primarily Gundam anime type kit store. But she, the lady there, has everything, so she likes Liang. Their modelers use it. So the IPMS club in Las Vegas covers all of the Las Vegas Valley. I'll do one presentation there. I'll tell them that both of the stores have it and you know they they choose from that. So I really enjoy doing the presentations.
Adam Coleman:I've got a. I usually bring a, a demo box as well, and occasionally give a few samples out too. Gotta be careful I don't give too many samples away. That's right, especially when they're reusable. And then at the same time I'll travel as well. Like there's a a wonderful little chapter in East Texas.
Adam Coleman:Ipms in Tyler Went out there one Saturday, had a great time with those guys and you know they don't really have anything local in terms of brick and mortar. So it truly is education and to see people you know lining up with that is pretty good. I've got another friend who's a very proficient airbrush user and we did an airbrush demo at Texas Toy Soldier, using just stencils to show the 3D Wargamers what could be done. I mean that was that there was no stencils left in the store by the end of the night. So I usually have to tell the retailer beforehand, the local retailer. I say listen, we're going to be doing a demo, just make sure Make sure you have the product, help yourself. We're going to be doing a demo, just make sure make sure you have the product help yourself.
Kentucky Dave:You know, then I have to be careful what I show as well. It sounds like you're having fun doing this, which which is great, because I mean you know, when you get into business in your hobby, a lot of times it can take the joy out of the hobby. But you sound like you're really having a lot of fun with this absolutely.
Adam Coleman:Um, it's fun to to speak to something when you're a bit of a subject matter expert in in some ways. Right, I mean, I've been modeling my whole life, so I get it. I understand how this is going to work. I understand enamel, acrylic and lacquer. I get all that. You're asking about demos. You know, one thing I I have done and this is only through my lack of time is I really wanted to get to either an Amps or a Chicago Toy Soldier or something like that and do something there for a room, but the tradeoff for that is I have to have a retailer who is at the event, who has the product right.
Kentucky Dave:So so there's, yeah, so there's a bit of a hands up to any retailers listening that next year, amps is in south bend, indiana, and the mmsi show is in, I think, october in chicago. So those are both, uh, both ones that I can highly recommend.
Adam Coleman:I've got to find out. At Michigan Toy Soldier and I know you guys stopped by there and were fairly, shall we say, distracted and delayed while you were there.
Kentucky Dave:They got a lot of my money.
Adam Coleman:Yeah, I get it, you know, I know that he goes to all of those shows, so it's just a case of coordinating it. But, you know, I mean of coordinating it. But I, you know, I mean, I still remember, you know, back the very first time when I when the demo box arrived from china and I'm looking at everything going. Okay, I've got to get familiar with this, I need to understand it. And then, you know, literally calling up a retailer and saying, oh look, I, here's what I do, here's what I sell. You know, and in today environment, cold calling via a telephone most people are pretty capable of using their phone and blocking a caller and all that stuff, right, so I had to be a little bit careful of that.
Adam Coleman:But also being able to talk the language and also learning from the retailers as well as to how their business cycle works, has been very, very, really humbling at times as well. But, yeah, you're right, definitely enjoying it and really excited by there's a new product list for 2025, which is about to make its way out. I mean, there's all sorts of things like that. But to have people send me an email and say, hey, I need to know where I can get the following Yep and absolutely and be able to say listen, you know, here's our retail list, here's our online list. Please reach out. You know no problem. And if I get specific requests requests had this recently for a particular component and I just knew that, for example, in that case it was coastline hobbies I knew that coastline hobbies had had that product coming in within 24 hours, you know. So I can quickly message them and say hey, by the way, I think you've sold that, you know, and that's part of being a supportive distributor, right.
Mike:Well, in conclusion, tonight, Adam can segue from what you just said a second ago about how to get in contact with you and how a prospective retailer can find out more about Liang and how all that comes together about Liang and how all that comes together.
Adam Coleman:So Liang Model USA is the Facebook page and there's a Liang Model which is China. There's Liang Model USA, which is myself. Obviously, I can be messaged off the Facebook page and then my email is also on that which is Liang Model USA at gmailcom I think my phone number's even on there if people want to reach out, I don't mind Happy to help. You know I really want to support modelers and, you know, make sure that they at least have an awareness of what's out there and what's available. And certainly Yusheng Liang's desire is that the you know that his personal love of the hobby is given out in education and guidance and things like that, and this is where much of the design thought comes into the actual advertising and marketing.
Adam Coleman:We've got one. Just to give you a little highlight, we have one coming out which which is actually for a t55 tank. Now, out of the blue, yushan will do this, but he's put together a weathered, a set of weathered wheels for a t55 tank in 135th scale and I got the demo of it. I mean, and they're just, they're just beautiful. I mean, they're really good and they're the ones're the ones where the rubber rim is all chopped up, but it's done right, and so I'd rather see that. Certainly the products and whether the center hole driller or the miter cutter which just came out, which was just flying off the shelves everywhere those things are really well-researched and functional and it's better that they come to market as a quality product than just be something which is out there and has a limited use. So that makes me excited and in for the long haul, and yeah, I can't say enough about the excitement that that brings.
Mike:Adam, thanks for joining us tonight and we're glad to help you promote Liang and look forward to what you got going in the future and look forward to the next time we see you, man, it's been a while no worries.
Adam Coleman:Well, my my hobby circuit this year took me to mosh on again in april for my third mosh on and then tank fest back in what last month, june right. So I've been traveling a fair bit in that that kind of spectrum as well. Thought I'd drop the mosh-on thing, because that's pretty amazing in itself.
Kentucky Dave:Evan was there this year.
Adam Coleman:I heard that. Yeah, yeah. So, having been a veteran right of three mosh-ons, now, like I come prepared, Dave, I bring empty boxes with me. I bring, yeah, I have a sanity shopping list that I try to abide by.
Kentucky Dave:Well, next year the IPMS National is up in Fort Wayne, Indiana. That's up in our neighborhood. You need to come up to Fort Wayne next year, no worries.
Adam Coleman:Thanks for the invite. I'll probably make it.
Kentucky Dave:If you stop in Louisville, I'll buy you a burger.
Adam Coleman:Actually a Diet Coke, a Diet Coke on ice. Okay, a Diet Coke on ice, I'm cheap to feed and low maintenance.
Mike:really Well, adam. Thanks again, and we'll be talking to you real soon, I'm sure.
Kentucky Dave:Thanks, thanks, mike, thanks, dave. Appreciate it always fun to talk to adam coleman. Yes, and you know it. Just, it never ceases to amaze me the stories that you hear where some modeler ends up getting involved in the business side of the hobby, and every time that happens, each story is unique, and each story is different, and each story is really interesting in and of its own, and so I can't wait to see what happens with Liang as they go down the road together.
Mike:Yeah, there's a couple of things I want to pick up, so maybe I need to talk to Adam about that.
Kentucky Dave:Yes, definitely.
Mike:Well, folks, next we're going to pivot over to a show that's going to be happening in the latter part of next month, in August, in Huntsville, alabama. Well, dave, we're mixing it up with this spotlight. We had Adam Coleman on for Liang Models and now we're going to pivot over to an upcoming model show. It's going to come a few weeks after the National Convention. Direct from the Rocket City of Huntsville, alabama, is Mr Tom Clark. Tom, how are you doing?
Tom Clark:I'm doing fine. How are you guys doing tonight?
Mike:Really good we're getting all excited.
Kentucky Dave:We got a green light for the National Convention and started gathering my wares, looking forward to it. I'm excited. Mike's ready to hop out of his skin. He's like a teenager. I will tell you, tom, that Huntsville's one of my favorite shows. Now I have not been in a number of years, I've noticed, thank you, simply due to logistics and stuff like that. But I have such fond memories of Huntsville and I met the president of Badger's son down there one time because we had adjoining vending tables. It was awesome.
Tom Clark:Yeah, well, you know, just listen. Next time you guys come down, let us know, we'll hook you up.
Kentucky Dave:Okay, we will. I can't wait. I can't wait, I will try. And I can't promise this year, but I will try.
Mike:Awesome, tom. Let's get into the meat and potatoes of this. Why don't you tell us about the host chapter and the date and location, and all that for your?
Tom Clark:show. Sure thing, host chapter is the Huntsville Plastic Model Society. I know a real original name for the club. We've been active since about 1973. Matter of fact, we've got a couple of the original members still kicking around telling us we're all doing everything wrong. So you know how that goes yeah. Sounds familiar. By our count, this is our 48th show.
Mike:Oh, wow.
Tom Clark:Yeah.
Mike:Long runner.
Tom Clark:Yeah, it has been. The only break we had, of course, was COVID.
Mike:Yeah.
Tom Clark:Yeah.
Mike:You and everybody else.
Tom Clark:Yeah, right, so 48th show, just build, it being the motto. August 23rd, which is the Saturday One-day show, doors open at 9. We go from 9 to 5. Judging starts at 1. For vendors, we do open the doors at 8 o'clock so everyone can kind of get in and get things settled up and get everything squared away, and then, like I said, registration starts at 9.
Kentucky Dave:Now, what's the location you're in?
Tom Clark:It is the Huntsville JC's building.
Kentucky Dave:Okay, the same building it's been in forever, right, forever. Yes, okay, one of my favorite little buildings, by the way, show venues, by the way, it's just, it's awesome.
Tom Clark:It's done us real well over the years. It's about 12,000 square feet. We typically split up kind of 50-50. Half of it's vendors, half of it's the show. We don't close our model room during judging, you know. We just ask people hey, give the judges space, don't hang around, please Let them talk about things. That's worked pretty well for us for the last several years. I'll give you guys the URL to where we can find the contest flyers and stuff like this later, but the address is 2200 JC's Way in Huntsville. We've been there for many years. We've got the current layout just down pat and we can knock out set up pretty quick.
Kentucky Dave:It's so easy for the vendors to move in and out of your building.
Tom Clark:Yeah, we've got one big roll-up door at one end, a couple of personnel doors on the back side of the building, so yeah, it's a pretty good facility for a show. About our size Always love to have a little bit bigger, but the price increases kind of exponentially around here, sure.
Mike:Yeah, that's gotten to be a problem in a lot of places. Yes, well, generally, just give us a little bit of the details about the show proper, other than what you've already covered about the who, the where and the when. Okay, but like registration protocols, just general show details.
Tom Clark:Sure thing, it's pretty much your bog standard IPMS show. We've got the aircraft, armor, auto, miscellaneous and junior categories set up. Most of them are self-explanatory. The registration we'd love to go to online registration, but we don't have that yet. But so essentially, when you show up, there's two forms, or two types of forms you have to do. One is just a general entry form that says, hey, this is my personal information and these are all the models I'm entering, and you fill that out and then, for each model you enter, you have a sheet that says, okay, this is the model this. And for each model you enter, you have a sheet that says, okay, this is the model. This is what I've done. The forms are available to fill out online, but we don't have an online registration yet.
Kentucky Dave:Got you so you can go to your website, download them, print them out, have them refilled out so that registration runs more smoothly.
Mike:Yes, Now, generally from an entry standpoint, the models on the table, about what size show are you talking about?
Tom Clark:We typically see about 350. Okay, well, that's pretty good, I think at one of our anniversary shows I think we got to like 520. Okay, but that's been a while.
Mike:Yeah, For one day, or that's a. That would be a lofty number to hit, especially in well, your region, our region.
Kentucky Dave:One of the nice things if you go down to your show is that the contest is not very far away from the Space and Rocket Center. If you've got family, come down, you can. You can run over there and do a couple of hours at the Space and Rocket Center, which is just a heck of an attraction. For those who've never been, it's definitely worth seeing, no matter what your level of interest in space is.
Tom Clark:You haven't been there in well. It's been up for a while, but it hasn't been a while since you haven't been there. They've added what I call the world's largest display case, which is the Davidson Center, with the entire Saturn V on its side inside, which is oh, they put it inside now. Well, we've got the replica Saturn V vertical and then they have another one built up from test articles on its side and it's all kind of semi-dissected so you can see all the staging and everything like this inside. So that's why.
Mike:I call it the world of years ago. I was down in Huntsville visiting some friends who moved down there a few years ago and yeah, to see that thing laid out on its side, split in sections, it's big. To understate it, it's pretty big.
Tom Clark:The rocket center is about. I'm just going to spitball it 10 minutes down the road from the venue.
Kentucky Dave:Now you all don't have on-site food, but you've got a lot of food very nearby.
Tom Clark:Well, we actually have changed that up. In the last year, oh, did we bring food trucks, or what? Yes, we do. Last year we had Fast Frankie's Wicked Eats, who wins just from having the most awesome food truck name available out there. Everyone loved their food. Matter of fact, frankie basically said he sold out Great. So he basically said, yeah, I'll be back there tomorrow next year, excuse me, matter of fact, this year he was like, hey, I got a friend who's got another food truck. We're like, yeah, well, what is it? Well, they do milkshakes, do you mind if he comes? We're like yeah, well, what is it? Well, they do milkshakes, do you mind if he comes?
Kentucky Dave:We're like eh, why not Wait a minute? Modelers and milkshakes, those don't go together.
Tom Clark:No, why not?
Kentucky Dave:We're known as a healthy group of individuals. People were worried about our physique, and so you know milkshakes just wouldn't be something that modelers would be interested in.
Tom Clark:Well, we're going to make milkshakes mandatory for everybody in the judging party, just so they have that energy to push through. There you go, there you go For the last day.
Mike:Now I want to go get a milkshake.
Kentucky Dave:And milkshakes in August in Huntsville probably be pretty darn satisfying.
Tom Clark:To your point too. If you don't want to do the food trucks, you're right. You pretty much go out to the main drive that JC's Way comes off of. You hang a left and that takes you into the Airport Road Shopping District and there's everything from Jimmy John's up to sit-down restaurants. Anything you pretty much can want is right there. You can find it right there. It's actually something that just opened up the last few years. You can actually see it if you go out the front door. It's Back 40 Brew Pub, which is a just ginormous place they have. We're probably going to have a. Last year we did a post-show debrief and unwind there, so may do that again this year.
Kentucky Dave:Hey, Mike, that sounds like our kind of place.
Mike:Milkshakes and brew pubs yeah, that's right. Big rockets yeah, there you go. Sounds like a good one, man. Well, you know folks who want to shop at the show. What's your vendor landscape looking like?
Tom Clark:Okay, we have got 62 tables of vendors, or 24 tables. We've got 29 parties renting them out so far, so we've been sold out for a couple of months.
Mike:Okay.
Tom Clark:Which is always good. I think we did have one. Well, we did have some cancellation. One of the vendors basically had to back out because of medical reasons. Sure, but we're sold out. That always happens. Names we've got Vulcan Hobbies from Birmingham. The guys do the.
Kentucky Dave:Gundam models.
Tom Clark:Yeah, we're going to be there. Custom Dioramics there, his and Her Hobbies, you know it's a pretty good mix of people coming in. I always found plenty to buy at the vendors, that's good, did want to bring up one thing that we've done. We have modified some of our categories okay, yeah, please mention that so one thing like for we've added a large scale armor category oh yeah, 20, 25th and larger.
Tom Clark:So we got that we're doing. We kind of took a cue from the ipms issue they had a couple months back talking about you know how to do gun. We've already had a, we had a gundam slash big freaking robot category and we kind of this time we decided to do a little bit different. We actually kind of split in like three subcategories gundam's getting much more popular, these, oh it is.
Tom Clark:You know there's a there's been several gundam clubs spin up in Huntsville, so we've got a basic eight inches and below, and basic being just out of the box, maybe basic paint or even just unpainted, and then so it's eight inches and below and eight inches and taller, which kind of gives you the break between typically in Gundam the Bondi kits called high grade versus master grade, which we're like. You know there's other companies that make kits that don't fall into that categorization necessarily. So we kind of pick size, okay, this kind of a break point. So it's eight inches and below, you're in this category, more than eight inches. Over here we also have a master, which is basically if you're doing advanced painting and modifications and detailing and all these other things, that's where you go, regardless of what your size is.
Mike:Yeah, it's been interesting to watch this evolve in the IPMS show, so I'll be real curious at the end of your show how that pans out and how it was received.
Kentucky Dave:I assume that this is in response to the fact that you're seeing more and more Gundam entries every year. Yes, enough now to justify multiple subcategories.
Tom Clark:Yes, we typically had to do a couple splits with that. The other thing I think we did is just kind of to fine-tune things. We're always going to be trying to fine-tune our categories. We split the historical and fantasy figures apart.
Mike:Okay.
Tom Clark:So just kind of I really wanted to get into. We've really been talking like, hey, do we want to start adding in wargaming figures as a separate category and stuff like this. But we're looking, it's like, yeah, we're adding kind of a lot of changes to the miscellaneous category. Let's just keep that kind of where we are right now. So we did those changes, added the three big freaking robots and the split between historical and fantastic. We'll see how it plays out. Sure, between historical and fantastic, we'll see how it plays out.
Kentucky Dave:Sure, you mentioned that the entry forms were downloadable, but I guess we didn't say where we download them from. So what's your website?
Tom Clark:I'm glad you asked that. To keep things simple, I've set up a Tiny Earl link to the contest page, so that's tinyearlcom backslash HPMS contest. I'll send you the Earl for you guys to put in the show notes.
Kentucky Dave:And also do a post on the dojo where you post that link and a copy of your flyer.
Tom Clark:I will do it. Thank you, we're on Facebook. At Facebook slash Facebook as Huntsville Plastic Modelers.
Mike:Yeah, that'll be easy to find. So there. Well, is there anything unique with the Huntsville show? You got a theme. Is there any special awards? Not this year, anything like that.
Tom Clark:Okay, no, not this year. I mean, we're just using our theme of just build it. Okay, it's kind of become the unofficial motto of the club Well, I don't have all the things, no, no, just build it.
Kentucky Dave:That is a good motto, something we all ought to observe.
Tom Clark:Oh, tell me about it. You know it's like. You know you buy a new kit and it's like Pokemon. I got to get every accessory kit. Yes, yeah, you know it's like hmm.
Kentucky Dave:Our last episode, we had a conversation with Bob Baer, the voice of Bob Okay, and the conversation one of the areas we talked about was aftermarket and the feeling like, in order to build any kit, you have to go out and acquire every piece of aftermarket ever made. Gotta catch them all, yeah, and how that ends up to the detriment of your modeling sometimes, yes.
Tom Clark:I can fully see that and having just recently experienced that with the Magic Factory A4. Oh, I mean, I just saw it. I'm not really an aircraft guy, but I saw that. Actually, I saw that at the squadron shop when we went up to, uh, chattanooga last month, and it's still.
Mike:he'll get you, oh, brandon, oh brandon gave you the hard sell man oh man, yeah, I just the hard sell being here, the doors open, go in come on in.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Tom Clark:And of course, it's the Skyhawk. I always loved the Skyhawk, just an absolutely beautiful little bird, and this is the one that's in the black and white test and evaluation scheme.
Kentucky Dave:Yeah.
Tom Clark:Which is just that looks cool, but anyway, I found myself doing exactly that. But that's enough of that, but getting into that kind of segue. So we actually do have a pretty good raffle going on. This year Mike has been out beating up people online to get good packages. We're actually implementing a baseline raffle and then we're going to have some stuff in the special raffle.
Kentucky Dave:Gotcha.
Tom Clark:So you know, the special stuff is like a dollar, a ticket, you know, and you buy, buy, give us $5, we'll give you six tickets and the special is $5. And for 25 bucks you get six tickets.
Mike:Don't we do that, dave?
Kentucky Dave:Yes, we have a high-end items airbrushes, compressors, really expensive new kits, you know some, the latest 16th scale monster or whatever armor kit and then our club will do that. We'll have the regular raffle $1 a ticket and then the special raffle where it's $5 a ticket. So that's becoming very common, I think.
Tom Clark:Yeah, I was up at your show in Louisville about two years ago. I think I am really envious of y'all's raffle management system.
Kentucky Dave:Well, if you need it, talk to me offline. We may be able to arrange that Awesome.
Mike:Well, if there's nothing else to cover, let's get the who, when and where again and make sure folks, Alabama, our 48th show.
Tom Clark:Just build it. August 23rd, from nine to five, judging starts at one, so get your model entered before then. Judging forms are available online and we hope to see you there. Perfect.
Mike:Well, tom, thanks for joining us, and again, we wish you all success, and we really love the opportunity to help the help clubs like yours promote their shows, because they're they're just a lot of fun and they're kind of the the backbone of this hobby, we think anyway yeah, yeah, I appreciate the opportunity guys. Hope we get to do this again sometime yeah, all right, well, and we'll see you in hampton, virginia, as well yes, we will all right, guys, take it easy, take it easy, take it easy.
Mike:I'll try. Well, always good to talk to Tom. We see him quite a bit around the show circuit and man, I wish we could get down there for that one. You know we're not going to commit to that one, unfortunately, but you know I got friends down there and the wife's wanting to go visit. Yeah, so we'll see.
Kentucky Dave:I love that show Unreserved. I have such fond memories. I've got a half dozen stories from different things that have happened in and around the Huntsville show and I just I really like it. If you've not been, guys, please make the effort to go. You will not regret it. I will personally guarantee that.
Mike:Well, folks check out Liang Models the URL is in the show notes and make plans later next month to get down to Huntsville if you're in the vicinity. And until then, dave, so many kits.
Kentucky Dave:So little time. Let's get packed. I'll see you next time.
