For skinning you first need to perform a UV unwrap of the model to map the 3D surfaces onto a 2D plane. Blender has some useful tools for this (interactive cuts, etc...). Once unwrapped you need to export the UV map to a suitable 2D graphics package to create the skin.
Animation is a complex topic. The playermodels will need rigging (think of this as adding bones and joints) before you can animate them.
Work your way through some tutorials.