Get mancandy and animate him since he is a great rig and great animation is from a great rig.
Protip: Don't google "mancandy".
Google "Mancandy Blender 3d rig"!
http://www.blendernation.com/new-mancandy-available-for-testing/He is the best rig out there,
you can do simple animation or have him talking very realistically with his nice facial rigging.
I would not bother HD, unless your using megabyte textures,
rendering a terminator with a santclause hat like I did or something ... I'd keep it lighter and forget HD unless you have nice textures and such....
Firstinaction.
It works but I'd try to do some more key frames,
have some filler to build up the anticipation and have parts of the body lag since they aren't robots.
Your work occasionally makes my stomach churn and I get slightly sick with all honestly,
that one with the new alien tremulous model with the music did it to me

Do a ton of mini learning runs, learn Blender inside and out.
Then 6 months later pick soemthing, get good at it then get good at another skill.
I've done CG for like 4 years,
just tons of little learning runs and I'm hoping to finally put out some nice work after all of this..