I'm following along in the Blender Noob to Pro tutorial, and I really want to find a section on "bending" objects. I'm guessing there is a jargon term for this I'm unaware of, and I'd like to know what that term is so I can go find out how to do it. (By bending I mean just that, imagine taking a spine and curving it around someone's waist as a belt for example. Well, for the exact example I'm doing as a matter of fact.)

You'll want to look at bezier curves.

Thanks! I'll look into that.

Hmmm. Looking at them in the Noob to Pro book, it seems like they are for the creation of objects, not the manipulation of extant objects. I'll do some more research, but if someone could find a page where bezier curves are used to bend an object that is already there, Id be grateful.

If your trying to 'bend' a spine or anything that has a skeleton attached to it, you can just go into Pose mode and bend/pose it how you want. And then "Make Real" I think is what its called. Which makes the model stay in form of how the skeleton posed it. Great for making in-game statues or whatever. (you could also make a skeleton, weight paint it, pose it, ect, then delete the skeleton once done, I imagine.)

Not exactly sure what your trying to do though.
If its like a pipe, or other straight object, you can just select the verts and bend them however you want.

I'm also a noob, I've found all this by just screwing around xD
Good luck!

Um, this might sound stupid, but how the heck do I get to Pose mode? All the tuts say to press CTRL-TAB from object mode, but that just takes me to Weight Paint mode. I'm confused. Thanks in advance.
EDIT: Nvm, it doesn't have a skeleton attached to it, which is why it won't go to pose mode. I'm trying to make a piece of an armor, not like a creature or anything.
Basically I'm trying to take the SpineStatic mesh provided with the game and bend it around a guy's waist as a belt.

Oh, an existing straight object. Yeah, that's a different story. Try this one about http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro/Deforming_Meshes_using_the_Curve_Modifier.

Thanks, I think that's exactly what I needed. I tried looking up "deformation" but I never got to that page. Thanks again!

Another question:
In this tutorial:
http://wiki.tesnexus.com/index.php/Creating_an_armour_for_Skyrim._Part_1#Creating_a_basic_clothes_mesh

It says at the beginning that I am to delete all of the skeletons. Then later when it comes to weight painting I need to reference the weights to a bone. So...what? How can I weight paint if I don't have any bones?

You can either import a new skeleton, or the simplest way to weightpaint is to follow the "Copy completely all the weights from another mesh" section.

Unfortunately I'm making a completely new armor, so I don't think I can just copy weights from an extant armor (though I will try, just to be sure). So, I guess I'll have to get a skeleton back, which I do know how to do. Thanks hanaisse. I'll likely be back with more questions shortly, I'll just keep this thread going rather than make new ones.

One last thing.
In the picture I'll post below, i need the coccygeal and lumbar vertebrae of the belt spines (in other words, the part of your spine where your butt is, where it flares out in the front) to bend around like the front of a belt. No matter what I try to do though, bending one part of the mesh bends the whole darn thing and screws up all the work I've done before. Doesn't anyone know of a safe way to just "pull" that towards the waistline?
P.S I think I'm doing pretty good for my first time using Blender. That Noob to Pro thing is pretty darn useful.

http://imgur.com/luwGB