1. A method of automatically rigging at least one mesh defining the external appearance of a 3D character, comprising: creating a 3D representation of the external appearance of the 3D character defined by the at least one mesh, where the 3D representation is a single closed form mesh; identifying salient points of the 3D representation; fitting a reference skeleton to the 3D representation; calculating skinning weights for the 3D representation based upon the fitted skeleton; and automatically rigging the 3D character by transferring the skeleton and skinning weights generated with respect to the 3D representation to the at least one mesh defining the external appearance of the 3D character.