HWM characters can have items, but the bones are different. It just takes longer to equip because you have to manually bind the bones of the item to the bones of the class model. The default HWM Scout is really messed up with the bones, which is why I use the Enhanced Scout from MaxOfS2D. Same quality, but better bones.
The default models can have facial expressions, but they are pretty limited.
And to forewarn you, a lot of the paintable items have broken textures. To fix them, you'd need an image editing program that can open .vtf files. I use GIMP with the VTF plugin. But even with that, not all of them can be repaired, like the Magical Mercenary. Still trying to find a fix for that one.
Other model textures are messed up in different ways, like the All-Father and the Kringle Collection. Those require an edit to the VMT to correct, which isn't as involved, but it's a pain anyway.
Once you fix the files, you'll need to put them in the right folders in your usermod directory. If you don't and you verify the game cache, it redownloads all the broken textures and overwrites the repaired ones.
I'm not saying this to scare you off. Repairing textures is a large part of poster making and it can be annoying as hell. If you're serious about making posters, it's better to know now then run into the problem later.
