I have tried a bunch of tutorials and even own a few books about modelling characters, but I dont like the way joints like the elbow, knees animate. Does anyone know a good design for making joints look good when they are animated? Is it all about how its weighted and whether its deformable or rigid? I make my vertices weights rigid and no blending because it maintains the arm shape really well that way. If anyone knows a better way please share :P Here are some pics of what im talking about you can see the mesh bunches up at the elbow joint.. also i drew some possible joints on some arms.

most people add an extra set of verts or two at the elbow/knee joints.. so you have a set of verts for the top of the lower leg, bottom of the thigh and another set in between to keep the knee roundness which is weighted to thigh and lower leg.tis weighting... i know i always weight the start of my models shoulder's to my bicep bones to get the shoulder to round of when the arm bends downwards..

i dont think rigid will not work for your needs.. pretty much a robot walk, that... if you need help on weighting (as in howto) lemme know.. each vert must have a value of one.. but that value can be split between bones..
don't use envelopes or cross-sections to weight bones.. they just plain suck... use vertices selecion and manually select em..

i have skin and not char_studio but should be same dealey..

hope i helped :/

Thanks a bunch I will definitely try out and let you know how it goes. :P