When you bind a mesh to two bones, you can control how much each bone influences different parts of the mesh using weights. This is exactly the approach you're describing for creating a bracelet effect!
How it works:
When you bind a mesh to multiple bones, each vertex of the mesh can be influenced by one or more bones. The weight values (0-100%) determine how much each bone affects each vertex.
For your bracelet example:
Bare arm (default skin): The arm mesh is bound to the arm bone at 100% weight, so it moves naturally with the arm.
Bracelet skin: You can add a bracelet-specific bone and bind the wrist area of the arm mesh to both:
- The original arm bone (for general arm movement)
- A bracelet bone (for the compression/pressure effect)
By adjusting the weights, vertices near the bracelet area will be influenced by both bones, allowing you to create the indentation or pressure effect by moving/scaling the bracelet bone.
You don't need to redraw the body parts! That's the beauty of mesh binding and weights. You use the same arm mesh across different skins, but with different bone bindings and weights depending on whether the bracelet is present.
The bracelet-specific bone can be added to a skin constraint, so it's only active when the bracelet skin is visible. This way, the bone and its effects only apply when needed, without affecting other skins.
