Tried an animation this time, only a simple one as I don't have much patience for such fiddliness.
The Claw is properly IK rigged, which took a big chunk of time, as I tried half a dozen different rigging ideas before finding the somewhat obvious answer.
It needs more work, but already takes north of 4 hours to render in full...
Animation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pasWfh5frwI
