July 29, 2025 • 58 mins
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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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike (00:12):
all right, dave.
How about a spotlight doublebill?
That sounds great, man, I'mtelling 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 getright into it, dave, because
we're running out of time forthe national convention.
Kentucky Dave (00:29):
I know We've got some packing to do buddy.
Mike (00:37):
Well, dave, we've got an unusual vendor spotlight this
time.
Normally we're dealing withfolks who have a retail
customer-facing business, buttonight we've got Mr Adam
Coleman, our favorite Aussiefrom Texas, with us, who is the
current US representative forLiang.
Adam, how are you doing tonight?
Adam Coleman (00:57):
Hey, good evening gentlemen.
Thanks for the invite.
Kentucky Dave (00:59):
Good evening, adam.
And isn't Aussie from Texaskind of redundant, because
Aussies are the Texas of theCommonwealth?
Adam Coleman (01:08):
People ask me if I'm from the deep South, and I
guess I am there you go.
Mike (01:14):
Well, Adam, you've been a longtime listener and supporter
of the show and when you handedthis nugget that you'd become
the US representative for Liang,we want to get you on, give you
a chance to promote what yougot going on and see if we can
support you in one way.
So why don't you let us knowhow that came about and what
Liang is and what you do?
Adam Coleman (01:32):
Absolutely Well from my standpoint.
You know I'm a prettyentrepreneurial guy.
I've got lots of little thingsgoing on, but I've been a
modeler all my life, right, andI've also done a lot of travel
in my life.
Long story short, I was in HongKong and in one of the many,
many stores that they have there, where it's impossible to get
past the front counter withoutseeing a stack of models to the
(01:55):
ceiling, I picked up severalairbrush stencils.
This was back in 2019.
And I thought these lookinteresting and I thought, okay,
well, this is a high coolfactor, I've got to have these,
and so I used them.
This was 2019, through about2022.
(02:15):
I used them and you know, ofcourse, they're not made to last
forever, but if you take careof them, they will last a long
time, and I eventually just woremine out and I thought, okay,
well, that's fine, I'll find Ihad still had the original
wrappers.
I thought I'm going to goonline find out where to locate
these, and I guess I can't findanywhere.
(02:36):
I'm up with all the same retailsites and online people as
everyone else and all thelisteners are.
I'm sure couldn't find itanywhere and I thought all right
, so I emailed their website Ithink that was in July and never
got a reply until November.
And I got a reply and they said,oh, it's not available.
(02:59):
You know we don't have anybodyin 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, Iknow 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 distributorsuit for north america and we
(03:20):
had a couple of.
If you don't, you know, if youdon't ask, you don't get right
so we, uh, we had a couple ofskype calls, which were, which
were really fun.
You know that the one person ontheir side speaks some, some
english fairly well.
We know each other and I don'tspeak any mandarin, of course
and we, um, we, we, you know,but we both know.
We both knew when we wereunderstanding each other and
(03:43):
when maybe there was still someclarity.
So what happened was, in Europe, mick Jimenez that we all know.
He's the distributor for Europefor the products, and I ended
up with the distributorship forNorth America.
So that was in late 2022 whenwe got that going, and really
(04:05):
the process has been to educateand find retailers, and find
online retailers as well thatwill carry the product and
obviously just grow it and lookfor year over year growth in
terms of volume, but alsobringing new products to market
all the time.
Kentucky Dave (04:24):
Now, have you ever before been involved with
the model slash hobby business Imean, other than as a modeler?
Adam Coleman (04:36):
Yes.
Kentucky Dave (04:37):
Is this your first foray into the business
side of the hobby?
Adam Coleman (04:43):
Yeah, I mean, you know I'm pretty adaptable.
I guess that's a pretty bigleap.
I've got other businessinterests that I have which have
similar types of cycles andvolumes to them, and one of
those is related to sportinggoods, another one is related to
some government liaison workand plus I have my own regular
full-time job anyway.
(05:03):
So these are all just thingsthat I like to do, and what best
way to have your occupationsort of parallel your hobby,
right?
I thought, okay, I can do thatAbsolutely.
Kentucky Dave (05:16):
Now is Liang purely a manufacturer.
Adam Coleman (05:21):
So Liang is out of , actually just outside of
Beijing.
The company started in 2019,and they're doing all the
manufacturing, obviously, of thetools and stencils and all of
the various new components anditems that come out, and then
the boxes that they're allhoused in are also out of the
(05:44):
same place, and all of thedesign is really from Yusheng
Liang, who's a young guy, veryexperienced modeler.
He's an architect by trade, andYusheng is one of the senior
judges, for it's not called IPMSin China, but essentially the
(06:05):
same organization, and so he'sthe one who got it up and going.
He has a VP of internationalsales, who's the one I deal with
, who speaks English, whoactually is the mother, would
you believe, so she's happy tosee her son doing well.
So really, it grew from very,very humble days in 2019 and
(06:30):
right up to now, where we'recarrying, where we offer for
retailers around about 90different products.
Kentucky Dave (06:37):
Now, did you find much friction in the Now and
maybe this has changed recentlywith the new administration and
issues regarding tariffs and allthat.
But as far as just generallydoing business with a Chinese
manufacturer and becoming theirNorth American distributor, was
(07:01):
there much friction in paperworkto paperwork to obtain the
products, to clear customs, todo all that stuff?
Adam Coleman (07:10):
yeah, so so we, we could talk about it.
Um, you know bt, and at rightbefore trump and after trump, um
, so just before trump, there isa thing called the de minimis
exemption.
I'm not sure you've ever heardof that.
So the United States is very.
I do a lot of internationaltravel and the United States is
(07:30):
very lucky in that the customsthreshold for incoming product
is $800, right, and mostcountries in the range of $100
to $200.
So that gives you an idea ofhow valuable this is.
So what happened was through theearly part of this year, or
prior to early part of this year, the diminutives exemption was
alive and well and that had nointerference with doing any
(07:54):
business.
So when a retailer contacts meand we make sure that everything
is good for their order, justlike anything else, there's an
email sent, there's averification on the Chinese side
that it's received, that allthe items are available, in
stock or in production, and thenusually within 24 hours, I get
(08:15):
shipping notification and thatwill be in the form of, you know
, dhl, fedex, any of the bigones and with the tracking, and
I provide that to the retailer.
Up until the early part of thisyear, would you believe the
turnaround time was about sevendays from Beijing to anywhere in
(08:37):
the United States.
When they placed an order.
It was that quick.
Kentucky Dave (08:41):
When you were working with a hobby retailer,
would you structure the order totry and make sure that it came
in under the de minimisexception?
Adam Coleman (08:51):
No, not at all.
In that case, I mean, I haven'thad it yet where we've actually
exceeded the exemption.
What's happened sometimes isthat we've had an order and then
a couple of weeks later, youknow, 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.
(09:12):
So I guess, more to luck thananything else, we haven't hit
the de minimis exemption on anyorders.
So anyway, that was the way itwas through the early part of
this year.
Then, of course, there was thatsort of turbulence that went on
in March and I was sort ofgetting it from because two of
my other business operations areactually related, out of China
(09:33):
and Hong Kong actually.
So I was sort of gettinginformation about how that was
playing out.
I was checking back and forth,of course, with Liang as to what
they were hearing, because theywere to a certain extent just
as in the dark as sometimes wewere.
But long story short is thatthat probably paused things for
(09:56):
about a 10-day, two-week period.
But to me it didn't matter toomuch because just before then
there was actually some bigorders go out.
Everyone had stock.
So I didn't matter too muchbecause just before then there
was actually some big orders goout.
Everyone had stock, so I didn'tsee it.
In other words, there wasn't ablip for supply.
However, I know from otherindustries and certainly in a
couple of cases, other modelers,modeling retailers, right.
(10:19):
They certainly suffered someturbulence as that all settled.
But the bottom line now is thatby the end of that month, which
was March, china had figured outa way to ship the product
certainly my stuff and with noneof the tariffs or any of that
stuff coming through in any way,shape or form, and it's taking
(10:44):
now, instead of seven days, itprobably takes 11 to work its
way through.
I don't know how they resolvethat on the Chinese side, but up
until the first part of thisyear in the industries that I'm
familiar with, the Chinesegovernment gave rebates and
subsidies back on volumes forshipping and whether or not the
(11:08):
distributor or the seller or themanufacturer took that as an
accrual and they would just youknow every time they did a
production they were shipping alarge quantity internationally,
they would take an allowance off.
That I don't know.
But the bottom line here isthat I'm really proud to say
that with Liang, since I've beeninvolved in it.
There's been no price increasesfor the retailers and
(11:32):
consequently the recommendedretail price guidelines for the
retailers is pretty much on themand everyone has worked really,
really well together with itBasically.
Kentucky Dave (11:43):
you're saying that the only difference between
before and what you'reexperiencing now is about three
or four more days of ship timefrom China to the US.
That's correct.
Adam Coleman (11:59):
There was also a couple of Liang items which are
not, which are.
If you look onlineinternationally, you can find
and they were just in theprocess of getting those
approved for the United Statesand for Canada, and those two
(12:20):
are pretty straightforward.
One of them is the they call itthe Zimmerit putty, and there's
another one there's actuallyone called sandbags which are
basically flexible sandbags thatyou can mould around a shape
right, so you want to put themon the front of a tank or on a
building or on a land feature.
And there's something about andI'm not up on my Mandarin for
(12:40):
this, but there's somethingabout the chemical makeup of
those which has not beenapproved for the US.
Occasionally, certainly, I getcalls and emails about it and I
tell people what I would do interms of a substitution.
But that was in process andrather than sort of raise a red
flag or anything on that, chinajust said, oh, we're just not
(13:04):
going to do it for North Americaat the moment.
So that's been the onlyinterruption.
But I understand, you know, foreverybody, right from modelers
right through to retailers andsuppliers.
I mean the ambiguity that wenton through the month of March
from my standpoint, fromLeanne's standpoint has
(13:26):
essentially been resolved andit's been really exciting to see
you know, because I can tell toa certain extent when retailers
order, like how things aregoing, and I mean it's been just
great.
So you know, thumbs up.
Kentucky Dave (13:41):
Well, my understanding is, even
established companies to meapparently had a problem with
their white primer in Canada.
They must have reformulated itor they did something that
changed the chemical formulationand it needed to be re-cleared
for shipment into Canada andcaused it to disappear in Canada
(14:05):
for some short period of time.
I think they've cleared thatall up.
So even old line companies whenit comes to products containing
chemical mixtures, that's adifferent processed and say,
shipping over a pair of tweezers.
Adam Coleman (14:25):
Yeah, that's right , there's things on both sides
of the fence to have to getworked on.
The products, as I said, theproduct line now is just around
about 90 items that areavailable for Liang.
And you know, on aninternational level I can see
that, you know the best sellers,I can see what's moving, I can
(14:46):
see what's not moving and thenit's pretty fascinating actually
how products hit a market likethat and then there'll be surges
of movement.
The most popular product thatwe sell is the Zimrit tools.
I'm not sure if you've seenthose, but zimmerit tool, yeah,
(15:07):
they come with a, they comesuitable for 72nd, 35th and I
think 48 scale as well.
Um, and there's a basic setwhich has all of the, the
essential tools, and thenthere's a um, an upgrade set
which has more complicatedpatterns and things like that.
Those, those internationallyfor Liang, are the popular, the
(15:29):
number one and two ranking.
But then again, you know,someday someone could be looking
for, you know, a set oflampposts that they have to have
right, and they'll reach out tome or whatever and I say, ah,
yeah, I know who's got that.
Talk to you know so-and-so andthey will.
You know, last I remember theyhad some and you usually find
(15:51):
that out which is really fun todo to help people.
I'm an altruist by nature, so Ilove doing that kind of thing.
Mike (15:57):
Well, you know you've got a 90 product, 90-ish product
line and they kind of run from.
You know some tools and thenthese stencils that kind of got
them started.
One thing that's interestingwith liang is is the the support
side of particularly theirwebsite.
There's a lot of videos andhow-tos on there that I think
(16:19):
are interesting, and can youspeak to that a little bit?
I mean, these tools are.
Some of them areself-explanatory, some are not.
You mentioned the zimmerittools and, and you know, you can
do the kind of, uh, thecorrugated patterns with those,
you can do the waffle patternswith those, just some really
neat things what it comes downto is.
Adam Coleman (16:36):
The product line varies between three core areas.
The most commonly known one isthe stencils.
They're very popular.
There's there's 12 stencils inthis in the set right.
They're very popular.
There's 12 stencils in the setright now.
They're a vinyl stencil.
They're flexible.
If you use them with acrylicsthey'll last much longer.
I think we have a video on thewebsite which shows one stencil
(16:59):
being reused I want to say 12times and in the 12 times it's
scrunched up in a ball and it'slaid 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 cutright 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,
(17:21):
and I, you know, I obviously Ilook at lots of other stencils
out there as well and differentdesigns, but we've been pretty
happy with ours and certainlythe demand for them is right up
there.
The second thing that is withinthe product line of the three is
related to modelling tools, andthat's where Yusheng Liang
(17:43):
really shines.
I mean, his design, theoriesand ideas are very exceptional.
There's a couple of new itemsthat 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 knowgetting handles right, certainly
at any scale, is difficult.
Well, this handle bender willdo all of that very, very easily
(18:05):
.
It's a simple tool to use.
There's another one justreleased called the centered
hole driller.
Kentucky Dave (18:10):
Yeah, that one looks interesting.
Adam Coleman (18:12):
Yeah, amazing piece of engineering.
And you know we talk abouttrying 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 thetools has been to educate on the
use.
And what you find on most Liangproducts is that there is a QR
(18:32):
code and if the person is in thestore or they're looking at it,
they can simply just do the QRcode check with their phone and
that takes them to the educationvideo and or the instructions
of that particular item, andthat's proven to be very, very
helpful there, for obviousreasons.
The third line of product isrelated more to supporting
(18:58):
dioramas and things like that.
There's multiple differentgoodness knows.
There's all kinds of leaf sets.
Who knew right that we have asummer one, a summer two, a
autumn one, and they're all alittle bit different.
But there's a fantastic videoof how to use the leaf stencil
set or the leaf set, and I mean,you know I'm not a big diorama
(19:21):
builder but I looked at that andI thought that's incredible.
And so you're right about theeducation aspect of it and I
think that the way the videosare structured are obviously for
an international audience.
So we we have obviously Englishones available, but you know
there's it's pretty obviouslyvisit visually what's going on.
(19:42):
So again, that's the three coreareas.
There, education is huge andimagination is huge, and that's
again where you shan is is very,very good.
So you know, with the latestproducts, the center hole
driller, like I said, andthere's another one it's called
a chainsaw tool set.
You know who makes chainsaws in135th?
(20:02):
Nobody, nobody right.
And little things too, which Ithink are really really well
done, which impressed me fromthe beginning.
For example, there's a laptopset 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 onthem.
Yeah, I saw that, you know.
(20:23):
It's just a great touch andthat's what I think is really
which, just as I said, itimpressed me from the beginning
with Liang and the fact that youknow they were willing enough,
as they wanted to growinternationally.
They knew that they wanted toget up and running in North
America, but they neededsomebody that had probably some
(20:47):
experience in business, becauseit's not just about getting the
product in right.
I mean, you have to educate theretailer.
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 owncriteria for how they go about
(21:09):
perhaps managing their website.
So whether they wanted a dozenof a particular item behind the
scenes and I think some of themwhen you look on their websites
it will show you how many are instock and things like that, and
some others don't do that.
But generally that's what I findreally really helpful.
I've got one particularcustomer who's a retailer in
(21:31):
Oklahoma and he will call and hehas questions about the product
, which are really really goodquestions, and he wants to know
that because when people ask himhe wants to be able to fill
that information in.
So there's a role there.
The online presence is reallystrong.
Thanks for the feedback on thevideos.
(21:53):
And then, obviously, havingsomebody that can be reached not
necessarily 24-7, but prettyclose to it can help retailers
right away.
Kentucky Dave (22:02):
I wanted to ask you about that.
Retailers right away.
I wanted to ask you about that.
The flip side of dealing withLiang is dealing with hobby
retailers in North America.
How's your experience been?
I mean, you know we all hearthat brick and mortar retailers
are dying, et cetera, et cetera.
What's been your experience inmarketing the liang products to
(22:29):
the north american hobbyretailers?
Adam Coleman (22:33):
yeah, absolutely good question, the um.
The key thing is that inanything, uh, like this, the
individual, that's, the retailer, has to have an imagination.
They have to an imaginationthat's realistic.
So you know there are some thatI sell to that will tell you
their product to their SKU,right storekeeping unit, the
(22:55):
actual UPC, the SKU movement ofa particular item.
You know on a seven-day basis,21-day basis.
They know that they canforecast their ordering basis
21-day basis.
They know that they canforecast their ordering Very,
very sophisticated.
I've got it in one particularcase.
I have access to their backendso I can see what's going on
(23:16):
right, which is really helpful.
So you've got that degree ofsophistication within the
business in North America.
Maybe not every online retaileris doing that, but certainly I
know of one that has that levelof work going on, and I come
from that backgroundprofessionally, so I get it.
I understand, I can usuallydigest the information fairly
(23:39):
easily.
And then, when you go down tobrick and mortar, what I find
most commonly is because I'mmaking the call, right, I'm
calling them up cold and sayinglook, 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, youknow, eight times out of 10,
(23:59):
four times out of five, theperson will say, yeah, I'm
really, I've heard about these.
How does it all work?
Right, and, of course, takethem 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 needyour thumbs up on it.
It's going to come to you 10 or11 days later, and then 10 or
(24:23):
11 days later, and then you know, go from there.
So I think I've been fairlychoosy about that.
I kind of.
I mean, I'll say this I didn'twant to have two competitive
retail brick and mortar storesin the same city.
I wanted one of them to have itright, gotcha, and so I have my
(24:44):
own personal controls on that.
Where I so, for example, can I,can I say some retailer names
if you wish.
Okay, so, so, for example, insan antonio, hill country hobby.
You know there are other hobbystores in that market, but, um,
you know, dave, david smith hasthat.
That san antonio, that's whereli Liang is available.
(25:04):
Right In Austin, lionheartHobby Rudy, actually, who was
the first customer.
Rudy has all of that patch.
In DFW there's one store calledTexas Toy Soldier which is more
of a 3D wargaming store but it'sgot a huge 3D aspect to it and
all of the typical paints thatyou see in a hobby store.
(25:26):
It's not a model building store, even though they have all of
the materials except the modelkits.
You know that's the one placein dfw where all the liang stuff
is available because those 3dmodels still use the tools.
They still gonna, they're stillgonna, they're still gonna
airbrush, they're still gonna doall that.
So you know, I've kept it kindof like that.
(25:46):
I don't ever want to likeOklahoma City Black Widow Models
, jim and Connie over there.
They have that patch that'stheirs.
If there's another hobby storein town I don't think there is,
I'm not going to.
You know, give that away.
Kentucky Dave (26:15):
So Liang didn't put any constraints on you as
far as that goes them anexclusivity that gives them a
little bit of a marketing edgein their modeling area.
Adam Coleman (26:32):
Absolutely, that was totally my call.
The only criteria that comesout of the Yang and that was
actually this is a good thingwas I got to see, for example,
what MIGS costs are right fortheir products.
I got to see what the Japanesethere's a Japanese retailer, oh
(26:55):
sorry, japanese distributor Igot to see what their prices
were, because, obviously, forthe purpose of the business, we
have to be somewhat consistentaround that.
So that was the only criteriafor them and they were very good
, offering all of that up to meand I could look at it, and when
we agreed on our costings, wewere all completely right in
(27:15):
line.
I mean, all those typical Excelspreadsheets translate in
Mandarin for everybody.
So that was good.
So that was good, so no, butanything in you know.
So there are some online storesright that carry Liang, but
that's a little bit of adifferent aspect than the brick
and mortar.
The brick and mortar is goingto be me selecting the city and
(27:47):
knowing and trusting theretailer and moving it on from
there.
The online is a littledifferent because they have a
different cycle of productmovement and also, too, I think
we'd all agree that each of theonline retailers have somewhat
of a different focus they're notall the same right and how they
go about their business.
So there's several onlines thatI work with, but all of those
(28:10):
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 eachother.
At least I understand thenotion of postage, but generally
you know there's an intentionthere that they're all going to
support each other on similarpricing.
(28:31):
But at least they get from meand at the same time, you know
it helps the product movementbecause one person will take a
big delivery.
I support all the products byonline marketing.
I support all the products byonline marketing.
So you know, when there is abig delivery, come in at I don't
know at Burbank's House ofHobbies.
I go online with that, but I dothe same thing for Coastline
(28:57):
Hobbies in North Carolina orKitlinks or Michigan Toy Soldier
.
I do the same thing for them aswell.
So there's a two-way streetthere of like.
I'm going to support you, nomatter what.
It's up to you to sell theproduct.
Yeah, so that's part of thelife of being a distributor,
right?
Kentucky Dave (29:13):
Are you doing any presentations of Liang products
like at either model contests,model shows or at the more
high-level hobby businessconventions?
Adam Coleman (29:29):
Again, another good point.
So I do presentations inmarkets, 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 andMortar in Las Vegas.
One is in Las Vegas itself,it's Hobby Island just off the
strip, and the other one iscalled Hobby One Japan.
(29:51):
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, haseverything, so she likes Liang.
Their modelers use it.
(30:11):
So the IPMS club in Las Vegascovers all of the Las Vegas
Valley.
I'll do one presentation there.
I'll tell them that both of thestores have it and you know
they they choose from that.
So I really enjoy doing thepresentations.
I've got a.
I usually bring a, a demo boxas well, and occasionally give a
few samples out too.
(30:32):
Gotta be careful I don't givetoo many samples away.
That's right, especially whenthey're reusable.
And then at the same time I'lltravel as well.
Like there's a a wonderfullittle chapter in East Texas.
Ipms in Tyler Went out there oneSaturday, had a great time with
those guys and you know theydon't really have anything local
(30:53):
in terms of brick and mortar.
So it truly is education and tosee people you know lining up
with that is pretty good.
I've got another friend who's avery proficient airbrush user
and we did an airbrush demo atTexas Toy Soldier, using just
stencils to show the 3DWargamers what could be done.
I mean that was that there wasno stencils left in the store by
(31:14):
the end of the night.
So I usually have to tell theretailer beforehand, the local
retailer.
I say listen, we're going to bedoing 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 (31:29):
You know, then I have to be careful what I show
as well.
It sounds like you're havingfun doing this, which which is
great, because I mean you know,when you get into business in
your hobby, a lot of times itcan take the joy out of the
hobby.
But you sound like you'rereally having a lot of fun with
this absolutely.
Adam Coleman (31:50):
Um, it's fun to to speak to something when you're
a bit of a subject matter expertin in some ways.
Right, I mean, I've beenmodeling my whole life, so I get
it.
I understand how this is goingto work.
I understand enamel, acrylicand lacquer.
I get all that.
You're asking about demos.
You know, one thing I I havedone and this is only through my
lack of time is I really wantedto get to either an Amps or a
(32:14):
Chicago Toy Soldier or somethinglike that and do something
there for a room, but thetradeoff for that is I have to
have a retailer who is at theevent, who has the product right
.
Kentucky Dave (32:27):
So so there's, yeah, so there's a bit of a
hands up to any retailerslistening that next year, amps
is in south bend, indiana, andthe mmsi show is in, I think,
october in chicago.
So those are both, uh, bothones that I can highly recommend
.
Adam Coleman (32:47):
I've got to find out.
At Michigan Toy Soldier and Iknow you guys stopped by there
and were fairly, shall we say,distracted and delayed while you
were there.
Kentucky Dave (32:58):
They got a lot of my money.
Adam Coleman (33:01):
Yeah, I get it, you know, I know that he goes to
all of those shows, so it'sjust a case of coordinating it.
But, you know, I mean ofcoordinating it.
But I, you know, I mean, Istill remember, you know, back
the very first time when I whenthe demo box arrived from china
and I'm looking at everythinggoing.
Okay, I've got to get familiarwith this, I need to understand
it.
And then, you know, literallycalling up a retailer and saying
(33:24):
, oh look, I, here's what I do,here's what I sell.
You know, and in todayenvironment, cold calling via a
telephone most people are prettycapable of using their phone
and blocking a caller and allthat stuff, right, so I had to
be a little bit careful of that.
But also being able to talk thelanguage and also learning from
(33:49):
the retailers as well as to howtheir business cycle works, has
been very, very, really humblingat times as well.
But, yeah, you're right,definitely enjoying it and
really excited by there's a newproduct list for 2025, which is
about to make its way out.
(34:10):
I mean, there's all sorts ofthings like that.
But to have people send me anemail and say, hey, I need to
know where I can get thefollowing 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 requestsrequests had this recently for a
(34:30):
particular component and I justknew that, for example, in that
case it was coastline hobbies Iknew that coastline hobbies had
had that product coming inwithin 24 hours, you know.
So I can quickly message themand say hey, by the way, I think
you've sold that, you know, andthat's part of being a
(34:52):
supportive distributor, right.
Mike (34:54):
Well, in conclusion, tonight, Adam can segue from
what you just said a second agoabout how to get in contact with
you and how a prospectiveretailer can find out more about
Liang and how all that comestogether about Liang and how all
that comes together.
Adam Coleman (35:13):
So Liang Model USA is the Facebook page and
there's a Liang Model which isChina.
There's Liang Model USA, whichis myself.
Obviously, I can be messagedoff the Facebook page and then
my email is also on that whichis Liang Model USA at gmailcom I
think my phone number's even onthere if people want to reach
out, I don't mind Happy to help.
You know I really want tosupport modelers and, you know,
(35:38):
make sure that they at leasthave an awareness of what's out
there and what's available.
And certainly Yusheng Liang'sdesire is that the you know that
his personal love of the hobbyis given out in education and
guidance and things like that,and this is where much of the
design thought comes into theactual advertising and marketing
(36:02):
.
We've got one.
Just to give you a littlehighlight, we have one coming
out which which is actually fora t55 tank.
Now, out of the blue, yushanwill do this, but he's put
together a weathered, a set ofweathered wheels for a t55 tank
in 135th scale and I got thedemo of it.
I mean, and they're just,they're just beautiful.
(36:24):
I mean, they're really good andthey're the ones're the ones
where the rubber rim is allchopped up, but it's done right,
and so I'd rather see that.
Certainly the products andwhether the center hole driller
or the miter cutter which justcame out, which was just flying
off the shelves everywhere thosethings are really
(36:44):
well-researched and functionaland it's better that they come
to market as a quality productthan just be something which is
out there and has a limited use.
So that makes me excited and infor the long haul, and yeah, I
can't say enough about theexcitement that that brings.
Mike (37:03):
Adam, thanks for joining us tonight and we're glad to
help you promote Liang and lookforward to what you got going in
the future and look forward tothe next time we see you, man,
it's been a while no worries.
Adam Coleman (37:13):
Well, my my hobby circuit this year took me to
mosh on again in april for mythird mosh on and then tank fest
back in what last month, juneright.
So I've been traveling a fairbit in that that kind of
spectrum as well.
Thought I'd drop the mosh-onthing, because that's pretty
amazing in itself.
Kentucky Dave (37:34):
Evan was there this year.
Adam Coleman (37:36):
I heard that.
Yeah, yeah.
So, having been a veteran rightof three mosh-ons, now, like I
come prepared, Dave, I bringempty boxes with me.
I bring, yeah, I have a sanityshopping list that I try to
abide by.
Kentucky Dave (37:54):
Well, next year the IPMS National is up in Fort
Wayne, Indiana.
That's up in our neighborhood.
You need to come up to FortWayne next year, no worries.
Adam Coleman (38:06):
Thanks for the invite.
I'll probably make it.
Kentucky Dave (38:09):
If you stop in Louisville, I'll buy you a
burger.
Adam Coleman (38:11):
Actually a Diet Coke, a Diet Coke on ice.
Okay, a Diet Coke on ice, I'mcheap to feed and low
maintenance.
Mike (38:20):
really Well, adam.
Thanks again, and we'll betalking to you real soon, I'm
sure.
Kentucky Dave (39:03):
Thanks, thanks, mike, thanks, dave.
Appreciate it always fun totalk to adam coleman.
Yes, and you know it.
Just, it never ceases to amazeme the stories that you hear
where some modeler ends upgetting involved in the business
side of the hobby, and everytime that happens, each story is
unique, and each story isdifferent, and each story is
really interesting in and of itsown, and so I can't wait to see
(39:24):
what happens with Liang as theygo down the road together.
Mike (39:29):
Yeah, there's a couple of things I want to pick up, so
maybe I need to talk to Adamabout that.
Kentucky Dave (39:32):
Yes, definitely.
Mike (39:34):
Well, folks, next we're going to pivot over to a show
that's going to be happening inthe latter part of next month,
in August, in Huntsville,alabama.
Well, dave, we're mixing it upwith this spotlight.
We had Adam Coleman on forLiang Models and now we're going
to pivot over to an upcomingmodel show.
(39:56):
It's going to come a few weeksafter the National Convention.
Direct from the Rocket City ofHuntsville, alabama, is Mr Tom
Clark.
Tom, how are you doing?
Tom Clark (40:05):
I'm doing fine.
How are you guys doing tonight?
Mike (40:07):
Really good we're getting all excited.
Kentucky Dave (40:17):
We got a green light for the National
Convention and started gatheringmy wares, looking forward to it
.
I'm excited.
Mike's ready to hop out of hisskin.
He's like a teenager.
I will tell you, tom, thatHuntsville's one of my favorite
shows.
Now I have not been in a numberof years, I've noticed, thank
you, simply due to logistics andstuff like that.
(40:39):
But I have such fond memoriesof Huntsville and I met the
president of Badger's son downthere one time because we had
adjoining vending tables.
It was awesome.
Tom Clark (40:56):
Yeah, well, you know, just listen.
Next time you guys come down,let us know, we'll hook you up.
Kentucky Dave (41:01):
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 (41:09):
Awesome, tom.
Let's get into the meat andpotatoes of this.
Why don't you tell us about thehost chapter and the date and
location, and all that for your?
Tom Clark (41:17):
show.
Sure thing, host chapter is theHuntsville Plastic Model
Society.
I know a real original name forthe club.
We've been active since about1973.
Matter of fact, we've got acouple of the original members
still kicking around telling uswe're all doing everything wrong
.
So you know how that goes yeah.
Sounds familiar.
(41:38):
By our count, this is our 48thshow.
Mike (41:42):
Oh, wow.
Tom Clark (41:43):
Yeah.
Mike (41:43):
Long runner.
Tom Clark (41:44):
Yeah, it has been.
The only break we had, ofcourse, was COVID.
Mike (41:48):
Yeah.
Tom Clark (41:48):
Yeah.
Mike (41:49):
You and everybody else.
Tom Clark (41:51):
Yeah, right, so 48th show, just build, it being the
motto.
August 23rd, which is theSaturday One-day show, doors
open at 9.
We go from 9 to 5.
Judging starts at 1.
For vendors, we do open thedoors at 8 o'clock so everyone
can kind of get in and getthings settled up and get
(42:11):
everything squared away, andthen, like I said, registration
starts at 9.
Kentucky Dave (42:15):
Now, what's the location you're in?
Tom Clark (42:18):
It is the Huntsville JC's building.
Kentucky Dave (42:20):
Okay, the same building it's been in forever,
right, forever.
Yes, okay, one of my favoritelittle buildings, by the way,
show venues, by the way, it'sjust, it's awesome.
Tom Clark (42:33):
It's done us real well over the years.
It's about 12,000 square feet.
We typically split up kind of50-50.
Half of it's vendors, half ofit's the show.
We don't close our model roomduring judging, you know.
We just ask people hey, givethe judges space, don't hang
around, please Let them talkabout things.
That's worked pretty well forus for the last several years.
(42:55):
I'll give you guys the URL towhere 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 layoutjust down pat and we can knock
out set up pretty quick.
Kentucky Dave (43:14):
It's so easy for the vendors to move in and out
of your building.
Tom Clark (43:19):
Yeah, we've got one big roll-up door at one end, a
couple of personnel doors on theback side of the building, so
yeah, it's a pretty goodfacility for a show.
About our size Always love tohave a little bit bigger, but
the price increases kind ofexponentially around here, sure.
Mike (43:39):
Yeah, that's gotten to be a problem in a lot of places.
Yes, well, generally, just giveus a little bit of the details
about the show proper, otherthan what you've already covered
about the who, the where andthe when.
Okay, but like registrationprotocols, just general show
details.
Tom Clark (43:54):
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 areself-explanatory.
The registration we'd love togo to online registration, but
we don't have that yet.
But so essentially, when youshow up, there's two forms, or
(44:14):
two types of forms you have todo.
One is just a general entryform that says, hey, this is my
personal information and theseare 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 fillout online, but we don't have
an online registration yet.
Kentucky Dave (44:35):
Got you so you can go to your website, download
them, print them out, have themrefilled out so that
registration runs more smoothly.
Mike (44:45):
Yes, Now, generally from an entry standpoint, the models
on the table, about what sizeshow are you talking about?
Tom Clark (44:54):
We typically see about 350.
Okay, well, that's pretty good,I think at one of our
anniversary shows I think we gotto like 520.
Okay, but that's been a while.
Mike (45:08):
Yeah, For one day, or that's a.
That would be a lofty number tohit, especially in well, your
region, our region.
Kentucky Dave (45:16):
One of the nice things if you go down to your
show is that the contest is notvery far away from the Space and
Rocket Center.
If you've got family, come down, you can.
You can run over there and do acouple of hours at the Space
and Rocket Center, which is justa heck of an attraction.
(45:39):
For those who've never been,it's definitely worth seeing, no
matter what your level ofinterest in space is.
Tom Clark (45:48):
You haven't been there in well.
It's been up for a while, butit hasn't been a while since you
haven't been there.
They've added what I call theworld's largest display case,
which is the Davidson Center,with the entire Saturn V on its
side inside, which is oh, theyput it inside now.
Well, we've got the replicaSaturn V vertical and then they
(46:12):
have another one built up fromtest articles on its side and
it's all kind of semi-dissectedso you can see all the staging
and everything like this inside.
So that's why.
Mike (46:25):
I call it the world of years ago.
I was down in Huntsvillevisiting some friends who moved
down there a few years ago andyeah, to see that thing laid out
on its side, split in sections,it's big.
To understate it, it's prettybig.
Tom Clark (46:40):
The rocket center is about.
I'm just going to spitball it10 minutes down the road from
the venue.
Kentucky Dave (46:47):
Now you all don't have on-site food, but you've
got a lot of food very nearby.
Tom Clark (46:54):
Well, we actually have changed that up.
In the last year, oh, did webring food trucks, or what?
Yes, we do.
Last year we had Fast Frankie'sWicked Eats, who wins just from
having the most awesome foodtruck name available out there.
Everyone loved their food.
Matter of fact, frankiebasically said he sold out Great
(47:15):
.
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 anotherfood truck.
We're like, yeah, well, what isit?
Well, they do milkshakes, doyou mind if he comes?
We're like yeah, well, what isit?
Well, they do milkshakes, doyou mind if he comes?
Kentucky Dave (47:31):
We're like eh, why not Wait a minute?
Modelers and milkshakes, thosedon't go together.
Tom Clark (47:38):
No, why not?
Kentucky Dave (47:40):
We're known as a healthy group of individuals.
People were worried about ourphysique, and so you know
milkshakes just wouldn't besomething that modelers would be
interested in.
Tom Clark (47:54):
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 Forthe last day.
Mike (48:03):
Now I want to go get a milkshake.
Kentucky Dave (48:05):
And milkshakes in August in Huntsville probably
be pretty darn satisfying.
Tom Clark (48:11):
To your point too.
If you don't want to do thefood trucks, you're right.
You pretty much go out to themain drive that JC's Way comes
off of.
You hang a left and that takesyou into the Airport Road
Shopping District and there'severything from Jimmy John's up
to sit-down restaurants.
Anything you pretty much canwant is right there.
(48:33):
You can find it right there.
It's actually something thatjust opened up the last few
years.
You can actually see it if yougo out the front door.
It's Back 40 Brew Pub, which isa just ginormous place they
have.
We're probably going to have a.
Last year we did a post-showdebrief and unwind there, so may
(48:54):
do that again this year.
Kentucky Dave (48:55):
Hey, Mike, that sounds like our kind of place.
Mike (48:58):
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 wantto shop at the show.
What's your vendor landscapelooking like?
Tom Clark (49:11):
Okay, we have got 62 tables of vendors, or 24 tables.
We've got 29 parties rentingthem out so far, so we've been
sold out for a couple of months.
Mike (49:20):
Okay.
Tom Clark (49:21):
Which is always good.
I think we did have one.
Well, we did have somecancellation.
One of the vendors basicallyhad to back out because of
medical reasons.
Sure, but we're sold out.
That always happens.
Names we've got Vulcan Hobbiesfrom Birmingham.
The guys do the.
Kentucky Dave (49:37):
Gundam models.
Tom Clark (49:38):
Yeah, we're going to be there.
Custom Dioramics there, his andHer Hobbies, you know it's a
pretty good mix of people comingin.
I always found plenty to buy atthe vendors, that's good, did
want to bring up one thing thatwe've done.
We have modified some of ourcategories okay, yeah, please
mention that so one thing likefor we've added a large scale
(50:01):
armor category oh yeah, 20, 25thand larger.
So we got that we're doing.
We kind of took a cue from theipms issue they had a couple
months back talking about youknow how to do gun.
We've already had a, we had agundam slash big freaking robot
category and we kind of thistime we decided to do a little
bit different.
We actually kind of split inlike three subcategories
(50:23):
gundam's getting much morepopular, these, oh it is.
You know there's a there's beenseveral gundam clubs spin up in
Huntsville, so we've got a basiceight inches and below, and
basic being just out of the box,maybe basic paint or even just
unpainted, and then so it'seight inches and below and eight
inches and taller, which kindof gives you the break between
(50:45):
typically in Gundam the Bondikits called high grade versus
master grade, which we're like.
You know there's othercompanies that make kits that
don't fall into thatcategorization 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
(51:05):
doing advanced painting andmodifications and detailing and
all these other things, that'swhere you go, regardless of what
your size is.
Mike (51:15):
Yeah, it's been interesting to watch this evolve
in the IPMS show, so I'll bereal curious at the end of your
show how that pans out and howit was received.
Kentucky Dave (51:23):
I assume that this is in response to the fact
that you're seeing more and moreGundam entries every year.
Yes, enough now to justifymultiple subcategories.
Tom Clark (51:38):
Yes, we typically had to do a couple splits with that
.
The other thing I think we didis just kind of to fine-tune
things.
We're always going to be tryingto fine-tune our categories.
We split the historical andfantasy figures apart.
Mike (51:50):
Okay.
Tom Clark (51:51):
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 aseparate category and stuff like
this.
But we're looking, it's like,yeah, we're adding kind of a lot
of changes to the miscellaneouscategory.
Let's just keep that kind ofwhere we are right now.
So we did those changes, addedthe three big freaking robots
(52:13):
and the split between historicaland fantastic.
We'll see how it plays out.
Sure, between historical andfantastic, we'll see how it
plays out.
Kentucky Dave (52:18):
Sure, you mentioned that the entry forms
were downloadable, but I guesswe didn't say where we download
them from.
So what's your website?
Tom Clark (52:30):
I'm glad you asked that.
To keep things simple, I've setup a Tiny Earl link to the
contest page, so that'stinyearlcom backslash HPMS
contest.
I'll send you the Earl for youguys to put in the show notes.
Kentucky Dave (52:46):
And also do a post on the dojo where you post
that link and a copy of yourflyer.
Tom Clark (52:53):
I will do it.
Thank you, we're on Facebook.
At Facebook slash Facebook asHuntsville Plastic Modelers.
Mike (53:02):
Yeah, that'll be easy to find.
So there.
Well, is there anything uniquewith the Huntsville show?
You got a theme.
Is there any special awards?
Not this year, anything likethat.
Tom Clark (53:12):
Okay, no, not this year.
I mean, we're just using ourtheme of just build it.
Okay, it's kind of become theunofficial motto of the club
Well, I don't have all thethings, no, no, just build it.
Kentucky Dave (53:25):
That is a good motto, something we all ought to
observe.
Tom Clark (53:28):
Oh, tell me about it.
You know it's like.
You know you buy a new kit andit's like Pokemon.
I got to get every accessorykit.
Yes, yeah, you know it's likehmm.
Kentucky Dave (53:39):
Our last episode, we had a conversation with Bob
Baer, the voice of Bob Okay, andthe conversation one of the
(53:59):
areas we talked about wasaftermarket and the feeling like
, in order to build any kit, youhave to go out and acquire
every piece of aftermarket evermade.
Gotta catch them all, yeah, andhow that ends up to the
detriment of your modelingsometimes, yes.
Tom Clark (54:09):
I can fully see that and having just recently
experienced that with the MagicFactory A4.
Oh, I mean, I just saw it.
I'm not really an aircraft guy,but I saw that.
Actually, I saw that at thesquadron shop when we went up to
, uh, chattanooga last month,and it's still.
Mike (54:29):
he'll get you, oh, brandon , oh brandon gave you the hard
sell man oh man, yeah, I justthe hard sell being here, the
doors open, go in come on in.
Kentucky Dave (54:40):
Yeah.
Tom Clark (54:43):
And of course, it's the Skyhawk.
I always loved the Skyhawk,just an absolutely beautiful
little bird, and this is the onethat's in the black and white
test and evaluation scheme.
Kentucky Dave (54:53):
Yeah.
Tom Clark (54:54):
Which is just that looks cool, but anyway, I found
myself doing exactly that.
But that's enough of that, butgetting into that kind of segue.
So we actually do have a prettygood raffle going on.
This year Mike has been outbeating up people online to get
good packages.
We're actually implementing abaseline raffle and then we're
(55:16):
going to have some stuff in thespecial raffle.
Kentucky Dave (55:19):
Gotcha.
Tom Clark (55:19):
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 sixtickets.
Mike (55:32):
Don't we do that, dave?
Kentucky Dave (55:33):
Yes, we have a high-end items airbrushes,
compressors, really expensivenew kits, you know some, the
latest 16th scale monster orwhatever armor kit and then our
(55:55):
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 (56:08):
Yeah, I was up at your show in Louisville about
two years ago.
I think I am really envious ofy'all's raffle management system
.
Kentucky Dave (56:17):
Well, if you need it, talk to me offline.
We may be able to arrange thatAwesome.
Mike (56:25):
Well, if there's nothing else to cover, let's get the who
, when and where again and makesure folks, Alabama, our 48th
show.
Tom Clark (56:33):
Just build it.
August 23rd, from nine to five,judging starts at one, so get
your model entered before then.
Judging forms are availableonline and we hope to see you
there.
Perfect.
Mike (56:54):
Well, tom, thanks for joining us, and again, we wish
you all success, and we reallylove the opportunity to help the
help clubs like yours promotetheir shows, because they're
they're just a lot of fun andthey're kind of the the backbone
of this hobby, we think anywayyeah, yeah, I appreciate the
opportunity guys.
Hope we get to do this againsometime yeah, all right, well,
and we'll see you in hampton,virginia, as well yes, we will
(57:15):
all right, guys, take it easy,take it easy, take it easy.
I'll try.
Well, always good to talk toTom.
We see him quite a bit aroundthe show circuit and man, I wish
we could get down there forthat one.
You know we're not going tocommit to that one,
unfortunately, but you know Igot friends down there and the
(57:35):
wife's wanting to go visit.
Yeah, so we'll see.
Kentucky Dave (57:40):
I love that show Unreserved.
I have such fond memories.
I've got a half dozen storiesfrom different things that have
happened in and around theHuntsville 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.
(58:01):
I will personally guaranteethat.
Mike (58:03):
Well, folks check out Liang Models the URL is in the
show notes and make plans laternext month to get down to
Huntsville if you're in thevicinity.
And until then, dave, so manykits.
Kentucky Dave (58:13):
So little time.
Let's get packed.
I'll see you next time.
all right, dave.
How about a spotlight doublebill?
That sounds great, man, I'mtelling 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 getright into it, dave, because
we're running out of time forthe national convention.
Kentucky Dave (00:29):
I know We've got some packing to do buddy.
Mike (00:37):
Well, dave, we've got an unusual vendor spotlight this
time.
Normally we're dealing withfolks who have a retail
customer-facing business, buttonight we've got Mr Adam
Coleman, our favorite Aussiefrom Texas, with us, who is the
current US representative forLiang.
Adam, how are you doing tonight?
Adam Coleman (00:57):
Hey, good evening gentlemen.
Thanks for the invite.
Kentucky Dave (00:59):
Good evening, adam.
And isn't Aussie from Texaskind of redundant, because
Aussies are the Texas of theCommonwealth?
Adam Coleman (01:08):
People ask me if I'm from the deep South, and I
guess I am there you go.
Mike (01:14):
Well, Adam, you've been a longtime listener and supporter
of the show and when you handedthis nugget that you'd become
the US representative for Liang,we want to get you on, give you
a chance to promote what yougot going on and see if we can
support you in one way.
So why don't you let us knowhow that came about and what
Liang is and what you do?
Adam Coleman (01:32):
Absolutely Well from my standpoint.
You know I'm a prettyentrepreneurial guy.
I've got lots of little thingsgoing on, but I've been a
modeler all my life, right, andI've also done a lot of travel
in my life.
Long story short, I was in HongKong and in one of the many,
many stores that they have there, where it's impossible to get
past the front counter withoutseeing a stack of models to the
(01:55):
ceiling, I picked up severalairbrush stencils.
This was back in 2019.
And I thought these lookinteresting and I thought, okay,
well, this is a high coolfactor, I've got to have these,
and so I used them.
This was 2019, through about2022.
(02:15):
I used them and you know, ofcourse, they're not made to last
forever, but if you take careof them, they will last a long
time, and I eventually just woremine out and I thought, okay,
well, that's fine, I'll find Ihad still had the original
wrappers.
I thought I'm going to goonline find out where to locate
these, and I guess I can't findanywhere.
(02:36):
I'm up with all the same retailsites and online people as
everyone else and all thelisteners are.
I'm sure couldn't find itanywhere and I thought all right
, so I emailed their website Ithink that was in July and never
got a reply until November.
And I got a reply and they said,oh, it's not available.
(02:59):
You know we don't have anybodyin 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, Iknow 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 distributorsuit for north america and we
(03:20):
had a couple of.
If you don't, you know, if youdon't ask, you don't get right
so we, uh, we had a couple ofskype calls, which were, which
were really fun.
You know that the one person ontheir side speaks some, some
english fairly well.
We know each other and I don'tspeak any mandarin, of course
and we, um, we, we, you know,but we both know.
We both knew when we wereunderstanding each other and
(03:43):
when maybe there was still someclarity.
So what happened was, in Europe, mick Jimenez that we all know.
He's the distributor for Europefor the products, and I ended
up with the distributorship forNorth America.
So that was in late 2022 whenwe got that going, and really
(04:05):
the process has been to educateand find retailers, and find
online retailers as well thatwill carry the product and
obviously just grow it and lookfor year over year growth in
terms of volume, but alsobringing new products to market
all the time.
Kentucky Dave (04:24):
Now, have you ever before been involved with
the model slash hobby business Imean, other than as a modeler?
Adam Coleman (04:36):
Yes.
Kentucky Dave (04:37):
Is this your first foray into the business
side of the hobby?
Adam Coleman (04:43):
Yeah, I mean, you know I'm pretty adaptable.
I guess that's a pretty bigleap.
I've got other businessinterests that I have which have
similar types of cycles andvolumes to them, and one of
those is related to sportinggoods, another one is related to
some government liaison workand plus I have my own regular
full-time job anyway.
(05:03):
So these are all just thingsthat I like to do, and what best
way to have your occupationsort of parallel your hobby,
right?
I thought, okay, I can do thatAbsolutely.
Kentucky Dave (05:16):
Now is Liang purely a manufacturer.
Adam Coleman (05:21):
So Liang is out of , actually just outside of
Beijing.
The company started in 2019,and they're doing all the
manufacturing, obviously, of thetools and stencils and all of
the various new components anditems that come out, and then
the boxes that they're allhoused in are also out of the
(05:44):
same place, and all of thedesign is really from Yusheng
Liang, who's a young guy, veryexperienced modeler.
He's an architect by trade, andYusheng is one of the senior
judges, for it's not called IPMSin China, but essentially the
(06:05):
same organization, and so he'sthe one who got it up and going.
He has a VP of internationalsales, who's the one I deal with
, who speaks English, whoactually is the mother, would
you believe, so she's happy tosee her son doing well.
So really, it grew from very,very humble days in 2019 and
(06:30):
right up to now, where we'recarrying, where we offer for
retailers around about 90different products.
Kentucky Dave (06:37):
Now, did you find much friction in the Now and
maybe this has changed recentlywith the new administration and
issues regarding tariffs and allthat.
But as far as just generallydoing business with a Chinese
manufacturer and becoming theirNorth American distributor, was
(07:01):
there much friction in paperworkto paperwork to obtain the
products, to clear customs, todo all that stuff?
Adam Coleman (07:10):
yeah, so so we, we could talk about it.
Um, you know bt, and at rightbefore trump and after trump, um
, so just before trump, there isa thing called the de minimis
exemption.
I'm not sure you've ever heardof that.
So the United States is very.
I do a lot of internationaltravel and the United States is
(07:30):
very lucky in that the customsthreshold for incoming product
is $800, right, and mostcountries in the range of $100
to $200.
So that gives you an idea ofhow valuable this is.
So what happened was through theearly part of this year, or
prior to early part of this year, the diminutives exemption was
alive and well and that had nointerference with doing any
(07:54):
business.
So when a retailer contacts meand we make sure that everything
is good for their order, justlike anything else, there's an
email sent, there's averification on the Chinese side
that it's received, that allthe items are available, in
stock or in production, and thenusually within 24 hours, I get
(08:15):
shipping notification and thatwill be in the form of, you know
, dhl, fedex, any of the bigones and with the tracking, and
I provide that to the retailer.
Up until the early part of thisyear, would you believe the
turnaround time was about sevendays from Beijing to anywhere in
(08:37):
the United States.
When they placed an order.
It was that quick.
Kentucky Dave (08:41):
When you were working with a hobby retailer,
would you structure the order totry and make sure that it came
in under the de minimisexception?
Adam Coleman (08:51):
No, not at all.
In that case, I mean, I haven'thad it yet where we've actually
exceeded the exemption.
What's happened sometimes isthat we've had an order and then
a couple of weeks later, youknow, 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.
(09:12):
So I guess, more to luck thananything else, we haven't hit
the de minimis exemption on anyorders.
So anyway, that was the way itwas through the early part of
this year.
Then, of course, there was thatsort of turbulence that went on
in March and I was sort ofgetting it from because two of
my other business operations areactually related, out of China
(09:33):
and Hong Kong actually.
So I was sort of gettinginformation about how that was
playing out.
I was checking back and forth,of course, with Liang as to what
they were hearing, because theywere to a certain extent just
as in the dark as sometimes wewere.
But long story short is thatthat probably paused things for
(09:56):
about a 10-day, two-week period.
But to me it didn't matter toomuch because just before then
there was actually some bigorders go out.
Everyone had stock.
So I didn't matter too muchbecause just before then there
was actually some big orders goout.
Everyone had stock, so I didn'tsee it.
In other words, there wasn't ablip for supply.
However, I know from otherindustries and certainly in a
couple of cases, other modelers,modeling retailers, right.
(10:19):
They certainly suffered someturbulence as that all settled.
But the bottom line now is thatby the end of that month, which
was March, china had figured outa way to ship the product
certainly my stuff and with noneof the tariffs or any of that
stuff coming through in any way,shape or form, and it's taking
(10:44):
now, instead of seven days, itprobably takes 11 to work its
way through.
I don't know how they resolvethat on the Chinese side, but up
until the first part of thisyear in the industries that I'm
familiar with, the Chinesegovernment gave rebates and
subsidies back on volumes forshipping and whether or not the
(11:08):
distributor or the seller or themanufacturer took that as an
accrual and they would just youknow every time they did a
production they were shipping alarge quantity internationally,
they would take an allowance off.
That I don't know.
But the bottom line here isthat I'm really proud to say
that with Liang, since I've beeninvolved in it.
There's been no price increasesfor the retailers and
(11:32):
consequently the recommendedretail price guidelines for the
retailers is pretty much on themand everyone has worked really,
really well together with itBasically.
Kentucky Dave (11:43):
you're saying that the only difference between
before and what you'reexperiencing now is about three
or four more days of ship timefrom China to the US.
That's correct.
Adam Coleman (11:59):
There was also a couple of Liang items which are
not, which are.
If you look onlineinternationally, you can find
and they were just in theprocess of getting those
approved for the United Statesand for Canada, and those two
(12:20):
are pretty straightforward.
One of them is the they call itthe Zimmerit putty, and there's
another one there's actuallyone called sandbags which are
basically flexible sandbags thatyou can mould around a shape
right, so you want to put themon the front of a tank or on a
building or on a land feature.
And there's something about andI'm not up on my Mandarin for
(12:40):
this, but there's somethingabout the chemical makeup of
those which has not beenapproved for the US.
Occasionally, certainly, I getcalls and emails about it and I
tell people what I would do interms of a substitution.
But that was in process andrather than sort of raise a red
flag or anything on that, chinajust said, oh, we're just not
(13:04):
going to do it for North Americaat the moment.
So that's been the onlyinterruption.
But I understand, you know, foreverybody, right from modelers
right through to retailers andsuppliers.
I mean the ambiguity that wenton through the month of March
from my standpoint, fromLeanne's standpoint has
(13:26):
essentially been resolved andit's been really exciting to see
you know, because I can tell toa certain extent when retailers
order, like how things aregoing, and I mean it's been just
great.
So you know, thumbs up.
Kentucky Dave (13:41):
Well, my understanding is, even
established companies to meapparently had a problem with
their white primer in Canada.
They must have reformulated itor they did something that
changed the chemical formulationand it needed to be re-cleared
for shipment into Canada andcaused it to disappear in Canada
(14:05):
for some short period of time.
I think they've cleared thatall up.
So even old line companies whenit comes to products containing
chemical mixtures, that's adifferent processed and say,
shipping over a pair of tweezers.
Adam Coleman (14:25):
Yeah, that's right , there's things on both sides
of the fence to have to getworked on.
The products, as I said, theproduct line now is just around
about 90 items that areavailable for Liang.
And you know, on aninternational level I can see
that, you know the best sellers,I can see what's moving, I can
(14:46):
see what's not moving and thenit's pretty fascinating actually
how products hit a market likethat and then there'll be surges
of movement.
The most popular product thatwe sell is the Zimrit tools.
I'm not sure if you've seenthose, but zimmerit tool, yeah,
(15:07):
they come with a, they comesuitable for 72nd, 35th and I
think 48 scale as well.
Um, and there's a basic setwhich has all of the, the
essential tools, and thenthere's a um, an upgrade set
which has more complicatedpatterns and things like that.
Those, those internationallyfor Liang, are the popular, the
(15:29):
number one and two ranking.
But then again, you know,someday someone could be looking
for, you know, a set oflampposts that they have to have
right, and they'll reach out tome or whatever and I say, ah,
yeah, I know who's got that.
Talk to you know so-and-so andthey will.
You know, last I remember theyhad some and you usually find
(15:51):
that out which is really fun todo to help people.
I'm an altruist by nature, so Ilove doing that kind of thing.
Mike (15:57):
Well, you know you've got a 90 product, 90-ish product
line and they kind of run from.
You know some tools and thenthese stencils that kind of got
them started.
One thing that's interestingwith liang is is the the support
side of particularly theirwebsite.
There's a lot of videos andhow-tos on there that I think
(16:19):
are interesting, and can youspeak to that a little bit?
I mean, these tools are.
Some of them areself-explanatory, some are not.
You mentioned the zimmerittools and, and you know, you can
do the kind of, uh, thecorrugated patterns with those,
you can do the waffle patternswith those, just some really
neat things what it comes downto is.
Adam Coleman (16:36):
The product line varies between three core areas.
The most commonly known one isthe stencils.
They're very popular.
There's there's 12 stencils inthis in the set right.
They're very popular.
There's 12 stencils in the setright now.
They're a vinyl stencil.
They're flexible.
If you use them with acrylicsthey'll last much longer.
I think we have a video on thewebsite which shows one stencil
(16:59):
being reused I want to say 12times and in the 12 times it's
scrunched up in a ball and it'slaid 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 cutright 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,
(17:21):
and I, you know, I obviously Ilook at lots of other stencils
out there as well and differentdesigns, but we've been pretty
happy with ours and certainlythe demand for them is right up
there.
The second thing that is withinthe product line of the three is
related to modelling tools, andthat's where Yusheng Liang
(17:43):
really shines.
I mean, his design, theoriesand ideas are very exceptional.
There's a couple of new itemsthat 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 knowgetting handles right, certainly
at any scale, is difficult.
Well, this handle bender willdo all of that very, very easily
(18:05):
.
It's a simple tool to use.
There's another one justreleased called the centered
hole driller.
Kentucky Dave (18:10):
Yeah, that one looks interesting.
Adam Coleman (18:12):
Yeah, amazing piece of engineering.
And you know we talk abouttrying 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 thetools has been to educate on the
use.
And what you find on most Liangproducts is that there is a QR
(18:32):
code and if the person is in thestore or they're looking at it,
they can simply just do the QRcode check with their phone and
that takes them to the educationvideo and or the instructions
of that particular item, andthat's proven to be very, very
helpful there, for obviousreasons.
The third line of product isrelated more to supporting
(18:58):
dioramas and things like that.
There's multiple differentgoodness knows.
There's all kinds of leaf sets.
Who knew right that we have asummer one, a summer two, a
autumn one, and they're all alittle bit different.
But there's a fantastic videoof how to use the leaf stencil
set or the leaf set, and I mean,you know I'm not a big diorama
(19:21):
builder but I looked at that andI thought that's incredible.
And so you're right about theeducation aspect of it and I
think that the way the videosare structured are obviously for
an international audience.
So we we have obviously Englishones available, but you know
there's it's pretty obviouslyvisit visually what's going on.
(19:42):
So again, that's the three coreareas.
There, education is huge andimagination is huge, and that's
again where you shan is is very,very good.
So you know, with the latestproducts, the center hole
driller, like I said, andthere's another one it's called
a chainsaw tool set.
You know who makes chainsaws in135th?
(20:02):
Nobody, nobody right.
And little things too, which Ithink are really really well
done, which impressed me fromthe beginning.
For example, there's a laptopset 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 onthem.
Yeah, I saw that, you know.
(20:23):
It's just a great touch andthat's what I think is really
which, just as I said, itimpressed me from the beginning
with Liang and the fact that youknow they were willing enough,
as they wanted to growinternationally.
They knew that they wanted toget up and running in North
America, but they neededsomebody that had probably some
(20:47):
experience in business, becauseit's not just about getting the
product in right.
I mean, you have to educate theretailer.
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 owncriteria for how they go about
(21:09):
perhaps managing their website.
So whether they wanted a dozenof a particular item behind the
scenes and I think some of themwhen you look on their websites
it will show you how many are instock and things like that, and
some others don't do that.
But generally that's what I findreally really helpful.
I've got one particularcustomer who's a retailer in
(21:31):
Oklahoma and he will call and hehas questions about the product
, which are really really goodquestions, and he wants to know
that because when people ask himhe wants to be able to fill
that information in.
So there's a role there.
The online presence is reallystrong.
Thanks for the feedback on thevideos.
(21:53):
And then, obviously, havingsomebody that can be reached not
necessarily 24-7, but prettyclose to it can help retailers
right away.
Kentucky Dave (22:02):
I wanted to ask you about that.
Retailers right away.
I wanted to ask you about that.
The flip side of dealing withLiang is dealing with hobby
retailers in North America.
How's your experience been?
I mean, you know we all hearthat brick and mortar retailers
are dying, et cetera, et cetera.
What's been your experience inmarketing the liang products to
(22:29):
the north american hobbyretailers?
Adam Coleman (22:33):
yeah, absolutely good question, the um.
The key thing is that inanything, uh, like this, the
individual, that's, the retailer, has to have an imagination.
They have to an imaginationthat's realistic.
So you know there are some thatI sell to that will tell you
their product to their SKU,right storekeeping unit, the
(22:55):
actual UPC, the SKU movement ofa particular item.
You know on a seven-day basis,21-day basis.
They know that they canforecast their ordering basis
21-day basis.
They know that they canforecast their ordering Very,
very sophisticated.
I've got it in one particularcase.
I have access to their backendso I can see what's going on
(23:16):
right, which is really helpful.
So you've got that degree ofsophistication within the
business in North America.
Maybe not every online retaileris doing that, but certainly I
know of one that has that levelof work going on, and I come
from that backgroundprofessionally, so I get it.
I understand, I can usuallydigest the information fairly
(23:39):
easily.
And then, when you go down tobrick and mortar, what I find
most commonly is because I'mmaking the call, right, I'm
calling them up cold and sayinglook, 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, youknow, eight times out of 10,
(23:59):
four times out of five, theperson will say, yeah, I'm
really, I've heard about these.
How does it all work?
Right, and, of course, takethem 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 needyour thumbs up on it.
It's going to come to you 10 or11 days later, and then 10 or
(24:23):
11 days later, and then you know, go from there.
So I think I've been fairlychoosy about that.
I kind of.
I mean, I'll say this I didn'twant to have two competitive
retail brick and mortar storesin the same city.
I wanted one of them to have itright, gotcha, and so I have my
(24:44):
own personal controls on that.
Where I so, for example, can I,can I say some retailer names
if you wish.
Okay, so, so, for example, insan antonio, hill country hobby.
You know there are other hobbystores in that market, but, um,
you know, dave, david smith hasthat.
That san antonio, that's whereli Liang is available.
(25:04):
Right In Austin, lionheartHobby Rudy, actually, who was
the first customer.
Rudy has all of that patch.
In DFW there's one store calledTexas Toy Soldier which is more
of a 3D wargaming store but it'sgot a huge 3D aspect to it and
all of the typical paints thatyou see in a hobby store.
(25:26):
It's not a model building store, even though they have all of
the materials except the modelkits.
You know that's the one placein dfw where all the liang stuff
is available because those 3dmodels still use the tools.
They still gonna, they're stillgonna, they're still gonna
airbrush, they're still gonna doall that.
So you know, I've kept it kindof like that.
(25:46):
I don't ever want to likeOklahoma City Black Widow Models
, jim and Connie over there.
They have that patch that'stheirs.
If there's another hobby storein town I don't think there is,
I'm not going to.
You know, give that away.
Kentucky Dave (26:15):
So Liang didn't put any constraints on you as
far as that goes them anexclusivity that gives them a
little bit of a marketing edgein their modeling area.
Adam Coleman (26:32):
Absolutely, that was totally my call.
The only criteria that comesout of the Yang and that was
actually this is a good thingwas I got to see, for example,
what MIGS costs are right fortheir products.
I got to see what the Japanesethere's a Japanese retailer, oh
(26:55):
sorry, japanese distributor Igot to see what their prices
were, because, obviously, forthe purpose of the business, we
have to be somewhat consistentaround that.
So that was the only criteriafor them and they were very good
, offering all of that up to meand I could look at it, and when
we agreed on our costings, wewere all completely right in
(27:15):
line.
I mean, all those typical Excelspreadsheets translate in
Mandarin for everybody.
So that was good.
So that was good, so no, butanything in you know.
So there are some online storesright that carry Liang, but
that's a little bit of adifferent aspect than the brick
and mortar.
The brick and mortar is goingto be me selecting the city and
(27:47):
knowing and trusting theretailer and moving it on from
there.
The online is a littledifferent because they have a
different cycle of productmovement and also, too, I think
we'd all agree that each of theonline retailers have somewhat
of a different focus they're notall the same right and how they
go about their business.
So there's several onlines thatI work with, but all of those
(28:10):
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 eachother.
At least I understand thenotion of postage, but generally
you know there's an intentionthere that they're all going to
support each other on similarpricing.
(28:31):
But at least they get from meand at the same time, you know
it helps the product movementbecause one person will take a
big delivery.
I support all the products byonline marketing.
I support all the products byonline marketing.
So you know, when there is abig delivery, come in at I don't
know at Burbank's House ofHobbies.
I go online with that, but I dothe same thing for Coastline
(28:57):
Hobbies in North Carolina orKitlinks or Michigan Toy Soldier
.
I do the same thing for them aswell.
So there's a two-way streetthere of like.
I'm going to support you, nomatter what.
It's up to you to sell theproduct.
Yeah, so that's part of thelife of being a distributor,
right?
Kentucky Dave (29:13):
Are you doing any presentations of Liang products
like at either model contests,model shows or at the more
high-level hobby businessconventions?
Adam Coleman (29:29):
Again, another good point.
So I do presentations inmarkets, 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 andMortar in Las Vegas.
One is in Las Vegas itself,it's Hobby Island just off the
strip, and the other one iscalled Hobby One Japan.
(29:51):
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, haseverything, so she likes Liang.
Their modelers use it.
(30:11):
So the IPMS club in Las Vegascovers all of the Las Vegas
Valley.
I'll do one presentation there.
I'll tell them that both of thestores have it and you know
they they choose from that.
So I really enjoy doing thepresentations.
I've got a.
I usually bring a, a demo boxas well, and occasionally give a
few samples out too.
(30:32):
Gotta be careful I don't givetoo many samples away.
That's right, especially whenthey're reusable.
And then at the same time I'lltravel as well.
Like there's a a wonderfullittle chapter in East Texas.
Ipms in Tyler Went out there oneSaturday, had a great time with
those guys and you know theydon't really have anything local
(30:53):
in terms of brick and mortar.
So it truly is education and tosee people you know lining up
with that is pretty good.
I've got another friend who's avery proficient airbrush user
and we did an airbrush demo atTexas Toy Soldier, using just
stencils to show the 3DWargamers what could be done.
I mean that was that there wasno stencils left in the store by
(31:14):
the end of the night.
So I usually have to tell theretailer beforehand, the local
retailer.
I say listen, we're going to bedoing 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 (31:29):
You know, then I have to be careful what I show
as well.
It sounds like you're havingfun doing this, which which is
great, because I mean you know,when you get into business in
your hobby, a lot of times itcan take the joy out of the
hobby.
But you sound like you'rereally having a lot of fun with
this absolutely.
Adam Coleman (31:50):
Um, it's fun to to speak to something when you're
a bit of a subject matter expertin in some ways.
Right, I mean, I've beenmodeling my whole life, so I get
it.
I understand how this is goingto work.
I understand enamel, acrylicand lacquer.
I get all that.
You're asking about demos.
You know, one thing I I havedone and this is only through my
lack of time is I really wantedto get to either an Amps or a
(32:14):
Chicago Toy Soldier or somethinglike that and do something
there for a room, but thetradeoff for that is I have to
have a retailer who is at theevent, who has the product right
.
Kentucky Dave (32:27):
So so there's, yeah, so there's a bit of a
hands up to any retailerslistening that next year, amps
is in south bend, indiana, andthe mmsi show is in, I think,
october in chicago.
So those are both, uh, bothones that I can highly recommend
.
Adam Coleman (32:47):
I've got to find out.
At Michigan Toy Soldier and Iknow you guys stopped by there
and were fairly, shall we say,distracted and delayed while you
were there.
Kentucky Dave (32:58):
They got a lot of my money.
Adam Coleman (33:01):
Yeah, I get it, you know, I know that he goes to
all of those shows, so it'sjust a case of coordinating it.
But, you know, I mean ofcoordinating it.
But I, you know, I mean, Istill remember, you know, back
the very first time when I whenthe demo box arrived from china
and I'm looking at everythinggoing.
Okay, I've got to get familiarwith this, I need to understand
it.
And then, you know, literallycalling up a retailer and saying
(33:24):
, oh look, I, here's what I do,here's what I sell.
You know, and in todayenvironment, cold calling via a
telephone most people are prettycapable of using their phone
and blocking a caller and allthat stuff, right, so I had to
be a little bit careful of that.
But also being able to talk thelanguage and also learning from
(33:49):
the retailers as well as to howtheir business cycle works, has
been very, very, really humblingat times as well.
But, yeah, you're right,definitely enjoying it and
really excited by there's a newproduct list for 2025, which is
about to make its way out.
(34:10):
I mean, there's all sorts ofthings like that.
But to have people send me anemail and say, hey, I need to
know where I can get thefollowing 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 requestsrequests had this recently for a
(34:30):
particular component and I justknew that, for example, in that
case it was coastline hobbies Iknew that coastline hobbies had
had that product coming inwithin 24 hours, you know.
So I can quickly message themand say hey, by the way, I think
you've sold that, you know, andthat's part of being a
(34:52):
supportive distributor, right.
Mike (34:54):
Well, in conclusion, tonight, Adam can segue from
what you just said a second agoabout how to get in contact with
you and how a prospectiveretailer can find out more about
Liang and how all that comestogether about Liang and how all
that comes together.
Adam Coleman (35:13):
So Liang Model USA is the Facebook page and
there's a Liang Model which isChina.
There's Liang Model USA, whichis myself.
Obviously, I can be messagedoff the Facebook page and then
my email is also on that whichis Liang Model USA at gmailcom I
think my phone number's even onthere if people want to reach
out, I don't mind Happy to help.
You know I really want tosupport modelers and, you know,
(35:38):
make sure that they at leasthave an awareness of what's out
there and what's available.
And certainly Yusheng Liang'sdesire is that the you know that
his personal love of the hobbyis given out in education and
guidance and things like that,and this is where much of the
design thought comes into theactual advertising and marketing
(36:02):
.
We've got one.
Just to give you a littlehighlight, we have one coming
out which which is actually fora t55 tank.
Now, out of the blue, yushanwill do this, but he's put
together a weathered, a set ofweathered wheels for a t55 tank
in 135th scale and I got thedemo of it.
I mean, and they're just,they're just beautiful.
(36:24):
I mean, they're really good andthey're the ones're the ones
where the rubber rim is allchopped up, but it's done right,
and so I'd rather see that.
Certainly the products andwhether the center hole driller
or the miter cutter which justcame out, which was just flying
off the shelves everywhere thosethings are really
(36:44):
well-researched and functionaland it's better that they come
to market as a quality productthan just be something which is
out there and has a limited use.
So that makes me excited and infor the long haul, and yeah, I
can't say enough about theexcitement that that brings.
Mike (37:03):
Adam, thanks for joining us tonight and we're glad to
help you promote Liang and lookforward to what you got going in
the future and look forward tothe next time we see you, man,
it's been a while no worries.
Adam Coleman (37:13):
Well, my my hobby circuit this year took me to
mosh on again in april for mythird mosh on and then tank fest
back in what last month, juneright.
So I've been traveling a fairbit in that that kind of
spectrum as well.
Thought I'd drop the mosh-onthing, because that's pretty
amazing in itself.
Kentucky Dave (37:34):
Evan was there this year.
Adam Coleman (37:36):
I heard that.
Yeah, yeah.
So, having been a veteran rightof three mosh-ons, now, like I
come prepared, Dave, I bringempty boxes with me.
I bring, yeah, I have a sanityshopping list that I try to
abide by.
Kentucky Dave (37:54):
Well, next year the IPMS National is up in Fort
Wayne, Indiana.
That's up in our neighborhood.
You need to come up to FortWayne next year, no worries.
Adam Coleman (38:06):
Thanks for the invite.
I'll probably make it.
Kentucky Dave (38:09):
If you stop in Louisville, I'll buy you a
burger.
Adam Coleman (38:11):
Actually a Diet Coke, a Diet Coke on ice.
Okay, a Diet Coke on ice, I'mcheap to feed and low
maintenance.
Mike (38:20):
really Well, adam.
Thanks again, and we'll betalking to you real soon, I'm
sure.
Kentucky Dave (39:03):
Thanks, thanks, mike, thanks, dave.
Appreciate it always fun totalk to adam coleman.
Yes, and you know it.
Just, it never ceases to amazeme the stories that you hear
where some modeler ends upgetting involved in the business
side of the hobby, and everytime that happens, each story is
unique, and each story isdifferent, and each story is
really interesting in and of itsown, and so I can't wait to see
(39:24):
what happens with Liang as theygo down the road together.
Mike (39:29):
Yeah, there's a couple of things I want to pick up, so
maybe I need to talk to Adamabout that.
Kentucky Dave (39:32):
Yes, definitely.
Mike (39:34):
Well, folks, next we're going to pivot over to a show
that's going to be happening inthe latter part of next month,
in August, in Huntsville,alabama.
Well, dave, we're mixing it upwith this spotlight.
We had Adam Coleman on forLiang Models and now we're going
to pivot over to an upcomingmodel show.
(39:56):
It's going to come a few weeksafter the National Convention.
Direct from the Rocket City ofHuntsville, alabama, is Mr Tom
Clark.
Tom, how are you doing?
Tom Clark (40:05):
I'm doing fine.
How are you guys doing tonight?
Mike (40:07):
Really good we're getting all excited.
Kentucky Dave (40:17):
We got a green light for the National
Convention and started gatheringmy wares, looking forward to it
.
I'm excited.
Mike's ready to hop out of hisskin.
He's like a teenager.
I will tell you, tom, thatHuntsville's one of my favorite
shows.
Now I have not been in a numberof years, I've noticed, thank
you, simply due to logistics andstuff like that.
(40:39):
But I have such fond memoriesof Huntsville and I met the
president of Badger's son downthere one time because we had
adjoining vending tables.
It was awesome.
Tom Clark (40:56):
Yeah, well, you know, just listen.
Next time you guys come down,let us know, we'll hook you up.
Kentucky Dave (41:01):
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 (41:09):
Awesome, tom.
Let's get into the meat andpotatoes of this.
Why don't you tell us about thehost chapter and the date and
location, and all that for your?
Tom Clark (41:17):
show.
Sure thing, host chapter is theHuntsville Plastic Model
Society.
I know a real original name forthe club.
We've been active since about1973.
Matter of fact, we've got acouple of the original members
still kicking around telling uswe're all doing everything wrong
.
So you know how that goes yeah.
Sounds familiar.
(41:38):
By our count, this is our 48thshow.
Mike (41:42):
Oh, wow.
Tom Clark (41:43):
Yeah.
Mike (41:43):
Long runner.
Tom Clark (41:44):
Yeah, it has been.
The only break we had, ofcourse, was COVID.
Mike (41:48):
Yeah.
Tom Clark (41:48):
Yeah.
Mike (41:49):
You and everybody else.
Tom Clark (41:51):
Yeah, right, so 48th show, just build, it being the
motto.
August 23rd, which is theSaturday One-day show, doors
open at 9.
We go from 9 to 5.
Judging starts at 1.
For vendors, we do open thedoors at 8 o'clock so everyone
can kind of get in and getthings settled up and get
(42:11):
everything squared away, andthen, like I said, registration
starts at 9.
Kentucky Dave (42:15):
Now, what's the location you're in?
Tom Clark (42:18):
It is the Huntsville JC's building.
Kentucky Dave (42:20):
Okay, the same building it's been in forever,
right, forever.
Yes, okay, one of my favoritelittle buildings, by the way,
show venues, by the way, it'sjust, it's awesome.
Tom Clark (42:33):
It's done us real well over the years.
It's about 12,000 square feet.
We typically split up kind of50-50.
Half of it's vendors, half ofit's the show.
We don't close our model roomduring judging, you know.
We just ask people hey, givethe judges space, don't hang
around, please Let them talkabout things.
That's worked pretty well forus for the last several years.
(42:55):
I'll give you guys the URL towhere 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 layoutjust down pat and we can knock
out set up pretty quick.
Kentucky Dave (43:14):
It's so easy for the vendors to move in and out
of your building.
Tom Clark (43:19):
Yeah, we've got one big roll-up door at one end, a
couple of personnel doors on theback side of the building, so
yeah, it's a pretty goodfacility for a show.
About our size Always love tohave a little bit bigger, but
the price increases kind ofexponentially around here, sure.
Mike (43:39):
Yeah, that's gotten to be a problem in a lot of places.
Yes, well, generally, just giveus a little bit of the details
about the show proper, otherthan what you've already covered
about the who, the where andthe when.
Okay, but like registrationprotocols, just general show
details.
Tom Clark (43:54):
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 areself-explanatory.
The registration we'd love togo to online registration, but
we don't have that yet.
But so essentially, when youshow up, there's two forms, or
(44:14):
two types of forms you have todo.
One is just a general entryform that says, hey, this is my
personal information and theseare 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 fillout online, but we don't have
an online registration yet.
Kentucky Dave (44:35):
Got you so you can go to your website, download
them, print them out, have themrefilled out so that
registration runs more smoothly.
Mike (44:45):
Yes, Now, generally from an entry standpoint, the models
on the table, about what sizeshow are you talking about?
Tom Clark (44:54):
We typically see about 350.
Okay, well, that's pretty good,I think at one of our
anniversary shows I think we gotto like 520.
Okay, but that's been a while.
Mike (45:08):
Yeah, For one day, or that's a.
That would be a lofty number tohit, especially in well, your
region, our region.
Kentucky Dave (45:16):
One of the nice things if you go down to your
show is that the contest is notvery far away from the Space and
Rocket Center.
If you've got family, come down, you can.
You can run over there and do acouple of hours at the Space
and Rocket Center, which is justa heck of an attraction.
(45:39):
For those who've never been,it's definitely worth seeing, no
matter what your level ofinterest in space is.
Tom Clark (45:48):
You haven't been there in well.
It's been up for a while, butit hasn't been a while since you
haven't been there.
They've added what I call theworld's largest display case,
which is the Davidson Center,with the entire Saturn V on its
side inside, which is oh, theyput it inside now.
Well, we've got the replicaSaturn V vertical and then they
(46:12):
have another one built up fromtest articles on its side and
it's all kind of semi-dissectedso you can see all the staging
and everything like this inside.
So that's why.
Mike (46:25):
I call it the world of years ago.
I was down in Huntsvillevisiting some friends who moved
down there a few years ago andyeah, to see that thing laid out
on its side, split in sections,it's big.
To understate it, it's prettybig.
Tom Clark (46:40):
The rocket center is about.
I'm just going to spitball it10 minutes down the road from
the venue.
Kentucky Dave (46:47):
Now you all don't have on-site food, but you've
got a lot of food very nearby.
Tom Clark (46:54):
Well, we actually have changed that up.
In the last year, oh, did webring food trucks, or what?
Yes, we do.
Last year we had Fast Frankie'sWicked Eats, who wins just from
having the most awesome foodtruck name available out there.
Everyone loved their food.
Matter of fact, frankiebasically said he sold out Great
(47:15):
.
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 anotherfood truck.
We're like, yeah, well, what isit?
Well, they do milkshakes, doyou mind if he comes?
We're like yeah, well, what isit?
Well, they do milkshakes, doyou mind if he comes?
Kentucky Dave (47:31):
We're like eh, why not Wait a minute?
Modelers and milkshakes, thosedon't go together.
Tom Clark (47:38):
No, why not?
Kentucky Dave (47:40):
We're known as a healthy group of individuals.
People were worried about ourphysique, and so you know
milkshakes just wouldn't besomething that modelers would be
interested in.
Tom Clark (47:54):
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 Forthe last day.
Mike (48:03):
Now I want to go get a milkshake.
Kentucky Dave (48:05):
And milkshakes in August in Huntsville probably
be pretty darn satisfying.
Tom Clark (48:11):
To your point too.
If you don't want to do thefood trucks, you're right.
You pretty much go out to themain drive that JC's Way comes
off of.
You hang a left and that takesyou into the Airport Road
Shopping District and there'severything from Jimmy John's up
to sit-down restaurants.
Anything you pretty much canwant is right there.
(48:33):
You can find it right there.
It's actually something thatjust opened up the last few
years.
You can actually see it if yougo out the front door.
It's Back 40 Brew Pub, which isa just ginormous place they
have.
We're probably going to have a.
Last year we did a post-showdebrief and unwind there, so may
(48:54):
do that again this year.
Kentucky Dave (48:55):
Hey, Mike, that sounds like our kind of place.
Mike (48:58):
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 wantto shop at the show.
What's your vendor landscapelooking like?
Tom Clark (49:11):
Okay, we have got 62 tables of vendors, or 24 tables.
We've got 29 parties rentingthem out so far, so we've been
sold out for a couple of months.
Mike (49:20):
Okay.
Tom Clark (49:21):
Which is always good.
I think we did have one.
Well, we did have somecancellation.
One of the vendors basicallyhad to back out because of
medical reasons.
Sure, but we're sold out.
That always happens.
Names we've got Vulcan Hobbiesfrom Birmingham.
The guys do the.
Kentucky Dave (49:37):
Gundam models.
Tom Clark (49:38):
Yeah, we're going to be there.
Custom Dioramics there, his andHer Hobbies, you know it's a
pretty good mix of people comingin.
I always found plenty to buy atthe vendors, that's good, did
want to bring up one thing thatwe've done.
We have modified some of ourcategories okay, yeah, please
mention that so one thing likefor we've added a large scale
(50:01):
armor category oh yeah, 20, 25thand larger.
So we got that we're doing.
We kind of took a cue from theipms issue they had a couple
months back talking about youknow how to do gun.
We've already had a, we had agundam slash big freaking robot
category and we kind of thistime we decided to do a little
bit different.
We actually kind of split inlike three subcategories
(50:23):
gundam's getting much morepopular, these, oh it is.
You know there's a there's beenseveral gundam clubs spin up in
Huntsville, so we've got a basiceight inches and below, and
basic being just out of the box,maybe basic paint or even just
unpainted, and then so it'seight inches and below and eight
inches and taller, which kindof gives you the break between
(50:45):
typically in Gundam the Bondikits called high grade versus
master grade, which we're like.
You know there's othercompanies that make kits that
don't fall into thatcategorization 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
(51:05):
doing advanced painting andmodifications and detailing and
all these other things, that'swhere you go, regardless of what
your size is.
Mike (51:15):
Yeah, it's been interesting to watch this evolve
in the IPMS show, so I'll bereal curious at the end of your
show how that pans out and howit was received.
Kentucky Dave (51:23):
I assume that this is in response to the fact
that you're seeing more and moreGundam entries every year.
Yes, enough now to justifymultiple subcategories.
Tom Clark (51:38):
Yes, we typically had to do a couple splits with that
.
The other thing I think we didis just kind of to fine-tune
things.
We're always going to be tryingto fine-tune our categories.
We split the historical andfantasy figures apart.
Mike (51:50):
Okay.
Tom Clark (51:51):
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 aseparate category and stuff like
this.
But we're looking, it's like,yeah, we're adding kind of a lot
of changes to the miscellaneouscategory.
Let's just keep that kind ofwhere we are right now.
So we did those changes, addedthe three big freaking robots
(52:13):
and the split between historicaland fantastic.
We'll see how it plays out.
Sure, between historical andfantastic, we'll see how it
plays out.
Kentucky Dave (52:18):
Sure, you mentioned that the entry forms
were downloadable, but I guesswe didn't say where we download
them from.
So what's your website?
Tom Clark (52:30):
I'm glad you asked that.
To keep things simple, I've setup a Tiny Earl link to the
contest page, so that'stinyearlcom backslash HPMS
contest.
I'll send you the Earl for youguys to put in the show notes.
Kentucky Dave (52:46):
And also do a post on the dojo where you post
that link and a copy of yourflyer.
Tom Clark (52:53):
I will do it.
Thank you, we're on Facebook.
At Facebook slash Facebook asHuntsville Plastic Modelers.
Mike (53:02):
Yeah, that'll be easy to find.
So there.
Well, is there anything uniquewith the Huntsville show?
You got a theme.
Is there any special awards?
Not this year, anything likethat.
Tom Clark (53:12):
Okay, no, not this year.
I mean, we're just using ourtheme of just build it.
Okay, it's kind of become theunofficial motto of the club
Well, I don't have all thethings, no, no, just build it.
Kentucky Dave (53:25):
That is a good motto, something we all ought to
observe.
Tom Clark (53:28):
Oh, tell me about it.
You know it's like.
You know you buy a new kit andit's like Pokemon.
I got to get every accessorykit.
Yes, yeah, you know it's likehmm.
Kentucky Dave (53:39):
Our last episode, we had a conversation with Bob
Baer, the voice of Bob Okay, andthe conversation one of the
(53:59):
areas we talked about wasaftermarket and the feeling like
, in order to build any kit, youhave to go out and acquire
every piece of aftermarket evermade.
Gotta catch them all, yeah, andhow that ends up to the
detriment of your modelingsometimes, yes.
Tom Clark (54:09):
I can fully see that and having just recently
experienced that with the MagicFactory A4.
Oh, I mean, I just saw it.
I'm not really an aircraft guy,but I saw that.
Actually, I saw that at thesquadron shop when we went up to
, uh, chattanooga last month,and it's still.
Mike (54:29):
he'll get you, oh, brandon , oh brandon gave you the hard
sell man oh man, yeah, I justthe hard sell being here, the
doors open, go in come on in.
Kentucky Dave (54:40):
Yeah.
Tom Clark (54:43):
And of course, it's the Skyhawk.
I always loved the Skyhawk,just an absolutely beautiful
little bird, and this is the onethat's in the black and white
test and evaluation scheme.
Kentucky Dave (54:53):
Yeah.
Tom Clark (54:54):
Which is just that looks cool, but anyway, I found
myself doing exactly that.
But that's enough of that, butgetting into that kind of segue.
So we actually do have a prettygood raffle going on.
This year Mike has been outbeating up people online to get
good packages.
We're actually implementing abaseline raffle and then we're
(55:16):
going to have some stuff in thespecial raffle.
Kentucky Dave (55:19):
Gotcha.
Tom Clark (55:19):
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 sixtickets.
Mike (55:32):
Don't we do that, dave?
Kentucky Dave (55:33):
Yes, we have a high-end items airbrushes,
compressors, really expensivenew kits, you know some, the
latest 16th scale monster orwhatever armor kit and then our
(55:55):
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 (56:08):
Yeah, I was up at your show in Louisville about
two years ago.
I think I am really envious ofy'all's raffle management system
.
Kentucky Dave (56:17):
Well, if you need it, talk to me offline.
We may be able to arrange thatAwesome.
Mike (56:25):
Well, if there's nothing else to cover, let's get the who
, when and where again and makesure folks, Alabama, our 48th
show.
Tom Clark (56:33):
Just build it.
August 23rd, from nine to five,judging starts at one, so get
your model entered before then.
Judging forms are availableonline and we hope to see you
there.
Perfect.
Mike (56:54):
Well, tom, thanks for joining us, and again, we wish
you all success, and we reallylove the opportunity to help the
help clubs like yours promotetheir shows, because they're
they're just a lot of fun andthey're kind of the the backbone
of this hobby, we think anywayyeah, yeah, I appreciate the
opportunity guys.
Hope we get to do this againsometime yeah, all right, well,
and we'll see you in hampton,virginia, as well yes, we will
(57:15):
all right, guys, take it easy,take it easy, take it easy.
I'll try.
Well, always good to talk toTom.
We see him quite a bit aroundthe show circuit and man, I wish
we could get down there forthat one.
You know we're not going tocommit to that one,
unfortunately, but you know Igot friends down there and the
(57:35):
wife's wanting to go visit.
Yeah, so we'll see.
Kentucky Dave (57:40):
I love that show Unreserved.
I have such fond memories.
I've got a half dozen storiesfrom different things that have
happened in and around theHuntsville 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.
(58:01):
I will personally guaranteethat.
Mike (58:03):
Well, folks check out Liang Models the URL is in the
show notes and make plans laternext month to get down to
Huntsville if you're in thevicinity.
And until then, dave, so manykits.
Kentucky Dave (58:13):
So little time.
Let's get packed.
I'll see you next time.
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