1. A method of automatically rigging at least one mesh defining the external appearance of a 3D character, comprising: receiving at least one non-rigged 3D mesh of an external appearance of a 3D character from a user device over a network using a server system; creating a 3D representation of the external appearance of the 3D character defined by the at least one non-rigged mesh received from the user device over the network using the server system, where the 3D representation is a single closed form mesh; identifying salient points of the 3D representation using the server system; fitting a reference skeleton to the 3D representation based upon the identified salient points using the server system; calculating skinning weights for the 3D representation based upon the fitted skeleton using the server system; 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 non-rigged mesh defining the external appearance of the 3D character to form a rigged mesh of the 3D character using the server system.