Coming from Maya a year ago and as an animator I wanted to tackle animation first thing, but I couldn’t find any decent free rigs maybe very little, this was a huge disappointment for me since in Maya you have this huge amount of character rigs given by the community for personal use and learning.
I don’t know what is the reason behind this for the Blender community but If there was a great pool of free character rigs it will attract a lot of animators to using Blender.
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There is a lot of free rigs for Blender. Not just rigs but whole animated open source movies. They are not included with the app but a single Google search is not that far away.
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One possible “lesson learned” that Blender could take from Maya is to make the resources that do exist “much easier to find.” There should be an obvious “resources” link on blender.org that leads to [sites that are designed to offer …] a well-curated list of models and other resources. Try hard to establish this as “the ‘go-to place’” to find such things.
And, don’t simply include hyperlinks to “somebody’s web-site” that may or may not maintain the collection. Instead, much like Github and Sourceforge and SoundCloud and so forth now do, let individual contributors maintain them … there.
I said decent rigs, I know there is a lot but they don’t come close to decent, whether be it the modeling, the appeal or rigging.
look at this to understand what I am talking about:
AnimationBuffet.com
Highend3d.com
I started this thread so that people can understand how animators feel about this matter especially starters who want to learn and practice and cant afford the expensive software so they come to Blender but they have very limited options, so they go back to using mostly Maya.
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There will still be much less and lower quality rigs available for blender than for maya, that will take some time to catch up still, just for the amount and quality of work produced in the program.
I believe the best available are the ones from the open movies in the cloud.blender.org most outdated unfortunately but the most recent ones should be ok, it should be worth the monthly fee even if just for a while 
It’s for the benefit of Blender if there was people making decent rigs and giving them for free, they can always ask for donations, surely their efforts won’t go unappreciated.
if there was a dozen of good rigs, even schools will be teaching animation with blender since it’s free, thus more studios will be integrating blender into their animation pipeline.
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This is my rigging character
You can download for free I think it’s quite good but not perfect 
https://mega.nz/#!T8RXlAxb!d4TlInUlOfmcLNEN3MnUG9KpCBGjH6u6Afsl9_2LTo8
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I would love more professionally made appealing rigs, but I don’t think they should be free. There are plenty of places to start learning animation and some good body mechanics rigs, that are more than enough to get going.
There are a lack of animator driven rigs in the community. Like the Mary Rig
or LongWinterStudios rigs (which I use in Maya)
Rigs with massive appeal, made with animator input if not directly by professional animators is something Blender just doesn’t have even for a price. I don’t see a lot of pure animation discussion in the community, so maybe the demand isn’t there yet.
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That’s why this should change, for the better of Blender and the community. I hope that with the Animation 2020 new animation system that is going to be implemented in Blender more professional rigs will be showing up, because Blender is really lacking in this matter.
Well to be fair animation specifically is not the area anyone expected Blender to attract users from Maya for, at least not yet. But for me it is not just the animation tools, but other tools related to character animation that I would like to see come from Maya to Blender.
But that said, as a user of both Maya and Blender I find Rigify and BlenRig 5 to be both very capable and professional animator driven tools. BlenRig 5 is probably the best. But both were created out of animation production tools. With the recent rigify having been updated by pichypoy studios:
So in my opinion I don’t see this specifically as a roadblock to attracting animators and I am a little surprised that these tools have not been discussed since this thread opened.
Additionally the fact of the matter is that there is not as large of a professional animation community in Blender as there is in Maya. This is not making an excuse. I am just saying it is a bit like putting the cart before the horse.
So it is like saying we need to have a large number of professional animators creating free rigs (which would happen more or less naturally) so we can attract a large number of professional animators.
As it is now the existing rigs we have are in fact here because of the existing professional animators who have contributed them. And so there are two really good ones. Probably an appropriate ratio compared to the existing pool of professional animators and riggers.
So it is not because there is a lack of understanding that this is necessary. It is just simply by the numbers. This is what this community is capable of right now.
The question you have to be asking at this point is what will it take to cause more professional animators to come to Blender?
The answer is already happening with more studios taking on Blender and with more large companies like Ubisoft and Epic games contributing.
It will take some time. But it is happening. And the result will be more professional animators and more professional rigs.
In the mean time there is Rigify and BlendRig 5.
Both very capable tools.
So I say, you want to attract users to Blender?
Get animating with the existing tools and show what they can do. 
More than ten years back when I started learning animation there was little number of rigs for Maya but they were well made, you could do anything with them body mechanics or acting they were made with appeal, less geometry, less controllers. To this day I prefer those kind of rigs because they don’t eat your resources nor your time.
People used those rigs a lot because of their simplicity and appeal, and that’s what Blender needs, although animation tools in blender still have some issues.
When it comes to Riggify or Blenrig they are too much heavy especially Blenrig it’s riddled with bones and constraints. Riggify when it comes to facial bone layout it’s not that good, facial bones should be disconnected from each other for more control and ease of use.
What Blender needs is not professional animators but it’s users to start doing animation, to find the right tools and rigs that make them having fun while doing it.
As for me Still can’t bring myself to do anything in blender although I have a few short movie concepts that I would like to make in Blender when the new animation system 2020 is made or maybe before … you never know.
So your point to be very concise, is that people using Blender don’t know how to rig the same way people who use Maya do. And specifically the way you think the rigs should be made. And none of the existing rigs fit this bill for you. And thus, the large number of animators who could/would otherwise come from Maya.
There is nothing wrong with this opinion. And nothing wrong with coming to Blender with an “outsider” view to shed light.
As an opinion there is nothing wrong with this.
As a solution, if you are trying to offer one, is where you are failing.
Because you solution seems to be. “Hey I’ll just tell everyone this, they will agree with me. They will see all this as true, and things will change”.
Am I right? Is this your solution?
Or you don’t care really and you don’t actually have a solution and you just wanted to rant?
Because this actually won’t work outside of just a rant.
It is too vague. And the people you want to affect are not going to go an learn Maya, learn these rigs, and then come back to Blender to fix this - as you see it.
It will take that kind of detailed and specific dedication.
So really the larger Blender community is not going to be able to actually do anything with this information.
What would be helpful is for you to learn Blender and its rigging system. It is free after all. And with your special knowledge, you can make some of these great rigs to give back to the community.
I’d like to see it.
But if you get half way there and realize you actually can’t do this in Blender, then oops. Welcome to the problem.
A sizable portion of the development of Blender comes from people like you who see issues and have needs. People appreciate it is free, and either donate or give back in other ways.
In my opinion, this is the best way you could get going with a solution. Or hire someone to do it for you if you cant.
But just posting here, while it is good discussion, won’t get it done.
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Wow… I don’t know from where comes this hostility, you don’t know me, what I do, what I know about Blender or don’t, or what situation I live in and you just assume things on your own and make your conclusions as you see fit. On top of that you recite things I didn’t say as if I did, you have some issues brother.
If this topic offends you can just go somewhere else, it’s not for you because apparently you misunderstand the purpose of it.
I am OK. I made my points.
Are you going to respond to them? Or personally attack me and say I have issues as a way to get around a discussion?
I mean you don’t have to respond at all. That is up to you. But personal attacks on me are not Ok. So I am going to flag it and leave it at that for now.
I remember the fist time I parented a mesh to an armature; don’t you just love it when the left thigh makes the head melt? What about unweighted vertices flying all over the place? Classy stuff, maan.
Anyhoo, rigging is a skill all of it’s own. I’ve been studying for a couple years now and I still make the occasional silly mistake that results in muscles bending out of existence. Whoever can do this kind of work on the fancy professional level is pretty much a hero.
Well weight painting is an art and a science. But it is just like anything. You could say the same about subdivision surface modeling. “Don’t you love how the Sub D Modifier makes all my square edges round?”
Of course there is an art and science to it.
But there is weight painting and there is mechanical rigging and there is creating meshes for good articulation. These are all sub categories - if you will - to rigging.
But these days there is not a real need to re-invent the rigging wheel. That is for most situations. And for this reason all applications come with some kind of auto rigging feature.
And they are not just for people who can’t rig. Auto Rigs came out of the need to speed up the process in production.
Both Rigify and BlenRig 5 came directly from Production. Rigify started with Big Buck Bunny, continued through Sentel and was taken as a project to complete it for average users after Sentel was completed. Recently Pichypoy studios modified it. And that is the current version in Blender.
BlenRig 5 is the rig used in Spring. I am not sure if there is a separate production version of BlendRig 5 or not. But if there is, it would be available for cloud members.
Additionally the team that made NextGen also came up with some rigging tools. I am not sure which of those will be made available for release with Blender. It is one thing to make a production tool and another thing to have it done to a level it can be released.
But we will see more of this co-development in the future.
But regardless, to make use of a rig you have to adapt it to your mesh. And that is going to take being able to weight paint. It is also a matter of being able to make a good mesh for animation. These are all skills in rigging.
It is a process of patience and methodical steps. If you take the time to learn it, it is much more simple, if a bit of hard work.
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Oh yes. Having automatic weights saves a lot of time… just like being able to symmetrize an armature or transfer vertex groups between meshes, tools exist to make the job more bearable, or “easier” if you will. Overall I think Blender is quite capable in this regard, though I don’t have an all that much significant point of reference.
But more of what I meant is the finer details can’t really be automated… at least not yet, that I know of. So with the level of skill and dedication required to produce quality work, well, I’m suprised we have any free resources at all.
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Just for the public record. I never intended to cause this kind of a situation. I am completely willing to apologize for taking an action that was probably more from the hip and just caused unnecessary stress.
Criticism of Blender’s animation system is perfectly fine by me and I think most of the community here will agree.
We all want to see it improve.
And I think discussion about it is interesting. Sure I am of the opinion that doing something is better than talking. But. The Blender animation system is what it is and this is also a part of the issue.
It is going to get better and there are a lot of great things ahead for Blender.
So please take my comments a little lighter and by all means clarify questions I had if you like.
Apologies accepted, Me too I apologize for not letting it slide, and for not being able to answer your questions.
This will be the last of it for me anyhow.
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Fair enough. Thanks for accepting and responding. 