Custom Hero Pose/Item Creation

[BenNJere]

I want to make a set for a hero as part of an application to a school in a games/design course and I already have the idea of what I want to do. My design for the weapon however requires the hero to have a slightly altered hand orientation to hold the weapon in a proper orientation so that it would match the design of the weapon. So, I am wondering if there is a way to change the pose of the hero so that it would adapt to the orientation. If possible can someone tell me how to do that. Additionally, if someone could provide detailed instructions as to how I could edit attack animations so that in the event that I can reorientate the way the hero holds the weapon, I can also create a smooth attack animation so that it can hold the custom weapon and seamlessly attack so that it looks like the weapon is properly hitting the target. If someone would also be so kind as to provide an up-to-date guide on how a newbie like me can create decent to good quality custom items for a hero because I have spent a regrettable amount of time from my given time period trying to learn from guides and halfway through just ending up with a dead-end because it was out of date after installing all the programs and downloading all the files and spending time following irrelevant instructions. Thanks for reading.