If you are looking for a quickest and easiest way for animation then #Mosketch might help you. MoSketch is specially designed for 3D character animation. It has released with distinctive features and displays characters. You can just animate by the stroke of a pen isn't it cool?

With Mosketch, users can animate any 3D character using joints only. Complex control rigs are not needed anymore.With its unique Up-and Down-influence, Mosketch provides quick and full control on any joint, its parent and its descendants. source

Check this out
streaming from Mosketch to Autodesk Maya

Mosketch demo