[gbzalla]

I think the simplest way would be to rig the character to a biped. You can control how many fingers and toes the biped has (in your case you'd want 1 or none). You can then select the entire biped, right click, go into object properties, then uncheck the renderable box. Then you can edit the skeletal movement and have the body follow that movement while the skeleton is not visible when rendered.