Arm IK & Hinge mode

Ultimately its whatever works with your artwork. I sometimes put a circle at the shoulder on the body (so a semi-circle sticks out where the arm joins the body Then use hinge - the circle behind fills in the gap. But sometimes weld is better, and sometimes stick tricks are needed. It really depends on the artwork.

Thanks for sharing what you found to work best - always interesting to see different solutions!

sorry I took so long to reply.

when I use hinge auto-bend doesn't work. it just rotates in a full circle. So I tried making a new arm and seeing if it was the arm shape that was giving me problems. but that wasn't it. so next I moved the shoulder tag and the stick tag so that they connected. that seemed to make it better however auto-bend stopped working for some reason. so finally I came to this having the stick next to the shoulder kept it from doing a weird bend.

Showing the layers could be helpful. What is the default position of the character? If arms down by default, it has to stretch more to get arms out sideways.

I think you should definitely be able to use hinge for the joint without issue - if it has the look you are after...

Sometimes I have put a circle (a ball) sticking out a bit at the shoulder and attached the arm to that (with hinge).

The other thing to check is the sticks in the arm. Maybe the stick needs to be a bit longer, or the shoulder handle is not quite right.

Bottom line, if you can include screenshots of the rigging view with the arm and torso selected (if independent) it can help - showing the sticks, handle positions etc.