A well-modeled character that deforms badly during animation is frustrating to work with and hard to fix after the fact. Rigging is where a lot of 3D artists hit a wall because it requires a different way of thinking than modeling does.
Who this is for
You have a finished or near-finished character mesh. You know your way around Blender or Maya. You want to rig it yourself rather than hand it off, or you want to understand what a rigger needs from your mesh. Either reason is valid.
The workshop covers armature setup, bone naming conventions, weight painting by hand, and corrective shape keys for problem joints like shoulders and knees. These are the joints that break most rigs.
Weight painting is the hard part
Honestly, most of the time in this workshop goes into weight painting. It is tedious, it is specific to your mesh, and there is no shortcut that works every time. You will paint weights on your own character, get feedback, repaint, and understand why certain decisions matter for animation.
By week four, your character will move through a basic walk cycle test without collapsing at the joints. That is the practical benchmark we work toward.
- Week 1: Armature design, bone placement, symmetry setup, naming standards
- Week 2: Automatic weights as a starting point, manual weight painting techniques
- Week 3: Problem joints, corrective shape keys, deformation testing
- Week 4: Control rig basics, walk cycle deformation test, export to game engine or rendering pipeline
Session format
Three live sessions per week, each 90 minutes. All sessions recorded. Individual rig review provided mid-workshop and at end of week four.