How do I fix automatic weight problem? I am on the final step of the character creation process for my model of Master Chief (Halo). I have made a simple rig (nothing fancy, like IK bones) and I am trying to set up some automatic weight paint on it, but it comes up with an error message going somewhere along the lines of "Failed to find weight heating for one or more bones". 

Here's a few things I know about the model which may help in solving this:
There are a couple finger bones barely jutting out of the mesh.
I made the hands and head separately from the rest of the project, the mesh had a sub surf modifier applied to it.
I have textures (colors) applied to the mesh.
I have re-calculated normal's, and I have also used and applied a mirror modifier.  

I'm sure there's more, but that's all I can think of right now.
In cases automatic wheight is not working well, manual wheighting is the best solution:
When parenting the model to his rig, choose "with empty group" option.
This will create one vertex group for every bone of your rig.
select the rig, go to pose mode, select the first bone to be weighted, select the model, go to edit mode, select all the vertices you need, In the "vertex group" tab choose the weight you want (from 0.0 to 1.0) and click assign.
Repeat for every bone.
Selecting the model and going to weight paint mode lets you check your work visually.