Rigging with Rigify's Human Meta-Rig

What this is: 
This project focuses on the basic principles of Anticipation, Follow Through, and Arcs. Blender has many ways of making these work, and you'll have an opportunity to find the one that works for you.

What to learn: 
You will understand the basic principles of Anticipation, Follow Through, and Arcs animation. You will learn more complex rigging techniques in Blender to help you with the animation.

What to do:

1. Download the linked body mesh from below or choose a non-rigged character from somewhere else. Difficulty doesn't receive more points. Rather, it will likely just get you frustrated.
2. Watch the video below to learn how to use the Rigify addon (Human  Meta-Rig) to rig your mesh. Do not worry about making the facial rig work.
3. Be sure to complete the rigging by Generating the Rig which turns your basic Human Meta-Rig into an advanced rig.
4. At this point, save your file, and title it Base Character. You'll use the Base Character as a template file for the rest of your projects.
5. Create a copy of this Base Character file to use in the next step. To create a copy of the file in Blender, select File > Save As or File > Save Copy; either one will work.
6. Continue rigging your character, create a movie of a short sequence of movements to demonstrate that your mesh is perfectly deforming with the Rigify armature. Be sure to save this file with a new name, like Rigify. DO NOT OVERWRITE YOUR BASE CHARACTER FILE.

Click on the image below to download your character to work with

Watch these videos to learn how to setup the Human Meta-Rig

Watch this video to learn more about Vertex Groups and Weighting mentioned in the video above.

This is not necessary to do any of this, but it will give you a better understanding of what is happening with the relationship between bones and vertices.