I've spent a good amount of time trying to work out how the hell to do a prehensile tail rig. The last time I did it, it involved a 72 bone multi-goal IK chain.

It kinda hurt.

This time, it involves a 65 bone IKB chain, main direction controlled by the big ball-shaped null object on the end.

I haven't yet tried to wrap the tail around something but I am stupidly confident.

Going to do some sliders to control the fingers and the wings, then that's ready to go, and I have to do the sliders thing for the fingers on the other two models before I start building characters.

But I can start building characters! YAY!

Showing off the completed rig of the Avian base model.

Weight mapping and adjusting geometry on wings. Still a way to go, obviously.

Grabs from a 22 second animation made for the express purposes of testing my rig and making some weight maps.

Fixed the nose sooner than I thought I would.

Quick render of the subpatched model with the default lighting. Just got the tongue to do, once I figure out the best way to model it.