Here I've created a little character and used pose morphs to rig his face for multiple expressions, for a quick render I used Cinema4D's Cel shader with AO and basic UV maps.
2D Rigging
In this example to my left I created a custom rig in After Effects using some expressions, this enabled me to rig the UP/LEFT/MIDDLE and DOWN positions which were then hooked up to a controller allowing me to move in all directions creating a 2.5D effect.
Sketching from referenced Owls I created this character which was later developed into a rig set up using a mixture between duIK and some of my own tricks.