Middlehammer Legacy Strikeforce: Hudd Paxton - Human Mercenary

Hello all, and apologies yet again for the delayed updates on the Middlehammer Legacy Strikeforce Project.

Grandfather Nurgle continues to single me out for attention. I can only assume he wants me for an aspiring champion becuase he is working really hard to defeat the best efforts of modern medicine. Bastard...

Anyway! After some chat on the Middlehammer fb group, and continued illness of myself and a couple of other participants the deadline has now been extended right up until the end of March, with entries to be with me by first week of April, and the draw for the lucky winner taking place in second week of April.

I've had another few updates from participants since the last post, so in additon to my human merc, Pete Grange's striking Eldar, we now have Mikael Igge Holmberg's bruising Ork brothers and their pet Snapasaurus (not the official biological name - it is possibly some form of previoulsy unidentified Squig!) - and we've seen grainy black and white security cam footage of a group of Muties, and a Mohawked Merc with a Tommygun! I've also heard rumours of a couple of Squat ex-guilders on their way to join the group!

Big thanks to everyone for their efforts so far - it has been great to recieve your updates and encouragement!

Here are some snaps of Igge's Orks to go with the pics of Pete's Eldar from my last post.

Igge informs me the min-T-Rex is an old orky extra bit from the Foundry - I love it!

These two are great - there's something about the bright orange hat that reminds me of Jayne from Firefly!

Hudd Paxton - Human Mercenary

So I was looking for some inspiration for my Human Merc with Flamethrower, and I was starting to lean towards the 80s Stadium Rock idea. Then something sad happened. Bill Paxton, an actor who appeared in many of my favourite movies growing up, had passed away aged just 61!

Private, 1st Class, William Hudson: "Stop your grinnin' and drop your linnen!"

Suddenly it all clicked into place. For those who don't know Paxton played one of the most iconic characters in the movie Aliens - Hudson the cynical Colonial Marine squad leader. The work of HR Geiger is well known to have been an influence on the development and some of the imagery behind Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader; the Colonial Marines from Aliens definitely had a touch of the snark about them like the human renegades from the banner picture; and it would be an homage to Bill Paxton and the character of Hudson.

I give you Hudd Paxton: Human Mercenary. 

Not the best lighting I'm afraid, not showing the blue tint on the glasses, or the rust and corrosion on the flamer as clearly as I'd like.

Bag straps need to be brown, some more detail on the comms back pack needed too I think...

A better shot of some of the corosion and rust on the Flamethrower

He's still not 100% finished, but I've done enough for a meaningful update, and he is back on course to be finished before the deadline at least!

I've had a bit of trouble getting an orange I was happy with, but also had some depth to it, but washes of plasma red and chestnut inks have helped, as have highlights of mixed Troll Slayer Orange and old school Sunburst Yellow.

Still some more detail to do on the bag straps, and I'd like to add some detail echoing the graffiti on Hudson's chest plate on the Orange Shoulder pad, but that might prove a stpe too far, so we will see how it goes.

Bill Paxton as Hudson - note the graffiti on the chest armour, which ties in really nicely with the RT Human Renegade.s

The bandana is not a Hudson trade mark, but it does tie in nicely with some other Aliens characters, as does the oversized Flamethrower, both of which remind me of the Smart Gunners, Vazquez and Drake.

Colonial Marines Vasquez and Drake armed with Smart Guns - the psycho sexual interplay between these two characters is an under appreciated element of the film imho.

It was the flame thrower that was giving me most grief though. I really didn't want to go for the classic dirty gun metal look, and had been trying to use non-metallic paints for metals, but once I thought about the flamethrower from the original Alien movie it again all clicked into place. The dirty industrial plastic look and rusted metal was perfect, so I set out recreating it as faithfully as I could.

Here you can see the original movie prop in detail. Image from the AVP Wiki.

Here you can see a less knackered version of a later model (from one of the Aliens computer games I believe), but it doesn't have the same character for my money. The gas canisters (made from a pair of Cadian IG binoculars) have been painted red and white, but I'm probably not going to add any warning signs for fear of making the model too busy.

A later evolution of the same model flame thrower as seen on the AVP Wiki.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering what Hudd Paxton keeps in his webbing, this is a good example - a picture of Hudson's technical kit from the Aliens Movie - image, as per all of the Alien/Aliens movie images in this post, taken from the AVP Wiki.

Hudson was the combat technician for his squad, and I like how this emphaises the different roles that marines have to play in combat - much the same reason I choose to include the comms style back pack on my human merc.

Anyway - apologies again for the lack of regular updates, but hope you enjoy seeing progress so far!

The project has a few more weeks to run and then we will hopefully get all the entries together for a group shot before they head off to their new home (where ever that might be!)

Thanks for stopping by and stay tund for more updates :)