Brief

Today's topic on Blender 3D is intermediate rigging - the art of using bones to move & animate an otherwise stationary mesh. The mesh I am following along to make is Dr. Otto Octavius' robotic tendril from Spider-Man (2004).

Every joint segment of tendrils needs to be modelled with precise integers; otherwise, small differences could be noticeable from a closer glance. After quickly making them, not pictured here, I duplicated 39 identical copies of them to form a complete tentacle.

After spawning an armature, subdividing the bones 39 times, and automatically applying weights to each individual segment, the basic rig is officially complete. But on the other hand, animating it manually is a rigid and time-costly process. As prepared, the tutorial provided a streamlined method to hastening rig animation: inverse kinematics.

Inverse kinematics (IK) simulates how a rigged mesh would contort and rotate depending on its armature's start and end bones. Moving the anchor, in this case a plain axis, or even the entire armature of an IK-included armature will have its child mesh automatically behave and contort as a connected limb.

Now for the claw. I am familiar with using the Skin modifier to turn infinitely thin lines into rectangular shapes with surface area, but progressing to quickly duplicating my modelled claw's… claws, I ran into a bump with the tutorial's instructions on the Array modifier. It did duplicate the 'finger' claws, but their positions were entirely different from what the tutorial displayed… 

Until a skilled commenter gave new instructions on solving this minor conundrum: Ctrl + A (All Transforms) while selecting the claw 'palm' and the singular claw!

The end result is a triangular claw with three pincers synchronically controlled by the original finger armature on the top.

Hopefully, by tomorrow, I will create a humanoid mesh to connect this clawed robotic tendril to. Keep this up every tutorial and lesson, maybe I will not have to work a lot in the long run. Effort DOES spoil the tastiness of the reward - in life, art or work.