Character Setup Big Picture

1. Get GEO, UVs and TEXTURES as FINAL as humanly possible
* edge and vertex structure most important
2. Delete history on geometry - clean out old construction nodes
3. Duplicate any meshes that need blendshapes.
Move Duplicate out of way, usually above.
Put Duplicate on new layer, named "blends"
4. Build basic skeleton - ignore advanced rigging (Ik, IK/FK switches)
Build spine, legs, arms, fingers, neck, head and name/connect/mirror
5. Skin model to basic skeleton. Skin>smooth bind.
6. Paint weights ON ONE SIDE until deformations are good.
Animate while skinning. Mirror skin weights when finished - make sure model is at bind pose before doing so (Skin>go to bind pose).

Character is now setup with basic skinning to skeleton

7. Draw facial detail joints. Eyelids and Jaw.
8. Parent facial detail joints to head joint. Note that detail joints
have no skin data at this point.
9. Select skinned head mesh, shift select facial detail joints
10. Skin>Edit Smooth Skin>Add Influence []
Click on "Lock Weights" and set to 0 (zero). Click add.
11. Select skinned head mesh.
12. Skin>Edit Smooth Skin>Paint Skin weights tool []
13. Find locked(hold) influences in the influence list.
14. Select jaw from list - click "Toggle Hold Weights on Selected"
15. Paint weights with Add mode selected. Add weight to jaw region.
I usually start at value of 1 and paint chin and jaw line, then
shift to value of 0.33, and taper weight out across neck and cheeks.
Use B key and LMB to slide brush size.
16. Animate the jaw while skinning it - set keys at 0, 15, 30, etc
17. Repeat process for eyelid joints.
Animate eyelids going from open to close.
Paint skin weights.
18. Go back to duplicated mesh. Make 4 additional duplicates. Line them up.
19. Take 3 of the dups. Sculpt one for gum sneer, one for lips wide, one for lips pursed.
20. Assign these 3 shapes as blendshapes to skinned head.
Select 3 target shapes, select base skinned mesh...
Create Deformers> Blendshape []
Make sure under Advanced Tab "Front of Chain" is selected