🎮 My First 3D Model • Episode 3 of 7 • See All Episodes
🎮 Episode 3 • Improver • Uses Your Ep 2 Character

Good Bones!
Rigging & Bones

Give your Episode 2 character a skeleton: an armature with body, arm and leg bones, connected to the mesh with automatic weights, so posing a bone moves the body like a puppet.

🎮 Ages 10+ 🎮 ~1.5 Hours 🎮 Blender ✓ Free
🎮 Armatures 🎮 Bone hierarchy 🎮 Parenting 🎮 Automatic weights 🎮 Pose Mode 🎮 Weight painting
🎮 Let's Build! Start Step 1 ← All Episodes 🎮? Print Guide
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Build it in our Blender Studio too: lay out a 3D scene, add Blender steps and export a real bpy script in the browser. Open the Blender Mod Studio →
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Make it in our 3D engine too: block out or plan your shape in the BuildLab 3D builder (no install, right in the browser), export it as a Blender file (glTF .glb), then in Blender use File > Import > glTF 2.0 and follow the steps below. How the series fits together →
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Workshop reference pack: download an offline copy of every step in this workshop: ⬇ blender-rigging-workshop-reference.zip. Every code block also has a Copy button.
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Reminder: Open your Episode 2 character .blend file in Blender!
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Your First Armature
Add a bone and grow the spine
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Goal for this step

Create an armature and build a spine of connected bones.

  • 1Open your Episode 2 character.blend.
  • 2Cursor to world centre (Shift+C), then Shift+A ? Armature. One bone appears, probably inside the body. Enable In Front (Armature properties ? Viewport Display) to see it through the mesh!
  • 3Tab into Edit Mode ON THE ARMATURE. A bone has a head, a body and a tip.
  • 4Select the TIP, extrude with E, a connected child bone! Build a spine: hips ? chest ? neck ? head, matching your character-s height.
  • 5Name every bone NOW (double-click in the outliner): "spine", "chest", "neck", "head". Future-you says thanks.
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Fill in the Blanks
+15 XP
A skeleton object in Blender is called an . New connected bones are grown by selecting a bone tip and pressing . The In Front option lets bones show through the .
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Knowledge Check
+15 XP
Extruding from a bone-s tip creates-
AA copy of the armature
BA connected CHILD bone, moving the parent will carry it, like real joints
CA new mesh
2
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Limb Bones & Symmetrize
Arms and legs, mirrored the smart way
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Goal for this step

Add left-side limb bones and mirror them automatically.

  • 1Arm chain: select the chest bone tip, E to extrude out to the shoulder, then upper arm, then forearm, then hand, following YOUR mesh (front view helps).
  • 2Naming with a suffix: upper_arm.L, forearm.L, hand.L, the .L matters!
  • 3Leg chain the same: thigh.L, shin.L, foot.L, from the hip area down.
  • 4The payoff: select ALL bones (A), right-click ? Symmetrize. Blender builds the whole .R side, perfectly mirrored, correctly named.
  • 5That .L/.R naming convention powers half of Blender-s animation tools, always use it.
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Fill in the Blanks
+15 XP
Left-side bones are suffixed so that right-click ? can auto-build the right side with correct names.
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Knowledge Check
+15 XP
Why do bone names matter so much?
ABlender crashes otherwise
BTools like Symmetrize, mirrored posing and animation retargeting all key off the .L/.R names
CNames change bone strength
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Bind with Automatic Weights
Parent mesh to armature, the magic moment
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Goal for this step

Connect the mesh to the skeleton so bones deform the body.

  • 1Object Mode. Select the MESH first, then Shift+Click the ARMATURE (order matters, active object last!).
  • 2Ctrl+P ? With Automatic Weights. Blender calculates how much each bone influences every vertex.
  • 3Test immediately: select the armature, switch the mode dropdown to Pose Mode, select the forearm bone, press R and rotate-
  • 4-THE ARM BENDS. Take a second. You built a puppet.
  • 5Reset any test pose with Alt+R (clear rotation), poses are not saved unless keyframed (Episode 4).
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Fill in the Blanks
+15 XP
Binding order is mesh first, armature , then Ctrl+ → With Automatic . Test rotations are cleared with Alt+R.
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Knowledge Check
+15 XP
"Automatic weights" calculates-
AThe character-s mass
BHow strongly each bone pulls on each vertex, based on distance, the mesh-to-skeleton glue
CBone lengths
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Pose Mode Practice
Strike poses: wave, walk stance, superhero landing
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Goal for this step

Get fluent posing the rig and spotting its weak points.

  • 1In Pose Mode, bones rotate (R) around their joints, that is 95% of posing. G is only for the root/hips.
  • 2Pose 1: a wave, shoulder up, elbow bent, repeat on the other arm for a cheer.
  • 3Pose 2: a walk stance, opposite arm and leg forward (this is Episode 4 homework arriving early).
  • 4Pose 3: crouched superhero landing, bend EVERYTHING. This one shows off every joint.
  • 5While posing, watch the elbows and knees closely- see any mesh crumpling? Note where. Next step fixes it.
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Fill in the Blanks
+15 XP
In Pose Mode almost everything is the rotate key, joints rotate rather than slide. In a natural walk stance the arm and leg swing forward.
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Knowledge Check
+15 XP
Why pose-test a rig hard BEFORE animating?
APoses are saved automatically
BAnimation repeats poses hundreds of times, a rig flaw found now costs minutes, found later costs the whole shot
CPose Mode expires
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Fixing Weights
Weight paint the crumples away
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Goal for this step

Understand and repair bad automatic weights.

  • 1Sometimes rotating an arm drags part of the chest, a vertex got weighted to the wrong bone.
  • 2Select the mesh, switch to Weight Paint mode. Blue = no influence, red = full influence, shown for the SELECTED bone (Ctrl+click a bone to switch).
  • 3Paint fixes: brush with weight 1 to ADD influence, weight 0 to REMOVE (the chest verts stealing from the arm get weight-0 brushed).
  • 4Small brush, low strength, gradual passes. Rotate the bone WHILE painting to watch the fix live.
  • 5Automatic weights get you 90% there; weight painting is the pro 10%.
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Fill in the Blanks
+15 XP
In Weight Paint mode, means full influence and means none. Removing influence means painting with weight .
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Knowledge Check
+15 XP
A chest vertex moves when the arm rotates. The fix is-
ADelete the vertex
BPaint weight 0 for the arm bone on that vertex, removing the wrong influence
CRotate more gently
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Rig QA & the Root Bone
Final checks and the one bone that moves them all
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Goal for this step

Add a root bone and put the rig through final quality checks.

  • 1Every good rig has a root bone at the floor: Edit Mode, add a bone at the origin, name it "root", then make the hips its child (select hips, then root, Ctrl+P ? Keep Offset).
  • 2Now grabbing root moves the WHOLE character, that is how characters travel through scenes.
  • 3QA checklist: ? every joint bends cleanly ? no mesh left behind on any pose ? Symmetrize named everything .L/.R ? root moves all.
  • 4Save as character-rigged.blend. Episode 4: keyframes, a bounce, and a walk cycle for THIS rig!
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Fill in the Blanks
+15 XP
The bone sits at the floor and parents the whole rig, so grabbing it moves the character. Parenting with offset uses Ctrl+P ? Keep .
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Knowledge Check
+15 XP
Why must characters move via the root bone rather than dragging the mesh object?
AMeshes cannot move
BThe rig and animation system track the armature, moving the mesh object desyncs the puppet from its skeleton
CRoot bones are faster
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Workshop Complete!
A puppet with working joints, rigging is the bridge between modelling and animation. Episode 4 makes it MOVE!
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Total XP
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Best Streak
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Accuracy
🎮 Episode 4: Character Animation ?
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🧩 3D Modelling Order Challenge

Drag the Blender workflow steps into the correct order:

Add materials and textures
UV Unwrap the model
Apply modifiers (Mirror, Subdivision)
Shape with Extrude, Scale and Loop Cut
Enter Edit Mode (Tab key)
Add a mesh (cube, sphere, or cylinder)