Could you help me figure out weight painting in blender?

[FelixGreen]

My rig does not want to work with the mesh, if I move a bone other body parts stretch.

[RaptorMonkey202]

you could select the mesh and then the rig and press ctrl+p, then select automatic weights. Thats what I do

[FelixGreen]

The mesh ends up stretching other parts of the body if I do that. So is there a way to figure out weight painting or avoid it completely?
P.S. Rigify does not work with my character.

[Riven1978]

weight painting on the 3d model is just like any other process, the right balance of opacity and pressure to achieve the desired effect, the different colors just basically tells you how much that particular vertex "area" is effected by that particular Bone Weight. going from blue to green to yellow to orange to red i believe .... been awhile since i played around with it. The key is to get the right balance and for that the easiest way i found was to go into pose with your skeleton in place so that it moves the part you want and then toy with the different settings up and or down depending until your mesh is doing what you want it to do .... it is much easier to show than tell for me but then again i have no way of doing a show style tutorial with my ancient rig other than a slow skype feed >.<