I am creating a fencer that will be used to produce illustrations for a free manual of fencing. I am very new to Blender, that is I began to work with it three days ago, but my main goal is not to become a Blender artist but simply to produce those illustrations. In practice, once I have the fencer working, I will create several poses and I will produce snapshots for the manual.
I developed a body with a skeleton but it has some problem and it is far to be perfect. In addition I do not know how to link it to a sword and I wishes to use custom shapes for bones to make the visual effect more friendly when I will animate it.
So I need some help. I can provide what I did up to now, which is probably 90% of work, but I need some correction and help for details. The final shape will NOT be textured, that is, I will use a simple light blue uniform texture for skin and a brown red texture for sword. The purpose is to show the correct position for guards, attacks, and parries.
I will not gain any money for this work, it is completely volunteering, so I can only acknowledge the help and share the final Blender file with the community.
Any help is appreciated. Thank you in advance.