Making an armature
An armature is used generally in 3D animation to move the model in natural ways. The idea and name comes from Claymation where a metal frame, sometimes with hinges sometimes just made from bendable material, would be built into the clay model like a skeleton to hold it upright and maintain poses, while the animation is accomplished frame-by-frame. In computer modeling the armature is used in a similar way to define the pose of a complex model by manipulating just a few skeleton lines.
Normally when modeling characters the process of building an armature is a complicated one involving many steps that would be outside the scope of this work. However, by using the skin modifier the process is simplified significantly.
This marks the beginning of another major section so this is a reminder about saving (Ctrl + S) and incremental saves.
Exit Edit Mode (Tab).
Open the modifiers panel and Apply the Mirror modifier.
On the Skin modifier click on the Create Armature button.
Now the original...
