I've been using Blender for another upper div, and after countless minutes of trial and error, and research, rigging models is one of the toughest tasks for a noob. Setting up the structure of the bones and parenting the bones to the main mesh was intuitive, but there's much more complexity that comes with the weight paint, as well as making sure there is not an excessive amount of vertices and polygons on the mesh itself.

If anyone has words of wisdom or life hacks for rigging in Blender, let me know! (for those that still need points for participation)