Hand joint problem

[Anonymous]

Good morning all,

  I've been through several videos and am yet to find a  solution for this.  I and rigging a hand for a standard bi-ped character.  As it is I have the character in T-pose with the arms just a bit lowered.  The palms of the hands are facing down with the fingers spread.  Is this not a good position in which to rig the hand?  (See photo)

  When i go to add joints and bones, the joint rotation gets completely screwed up after the first finger.  I thought I might draw out a straight chain

of joints and the duplicatie them, adjusting the rotation of the finger 'root' for each chain, however when i go to curl the new joint chain the rotation is way off.  Rather than curl straight inward the chain curls in and to the side.  (I am trying to mimic the way fingers converge onto eachother when the hand closes.)  Even after freezing transformations the rotations are incorrect.

thanks,

  Jerry