I should preface this by saying I'm relatively inexperienced in true 3D modeling/animation
Pretty much all modern games use bones for this, including for mechanical contraptions actually. The question is if Construct has the ability to manipulate bones at runtime. I don't think it's supported (yet?).
Bones are exactly what the name implies. You just build a "skeleton" for your mesh which you can then move. Generally called "rigging"
For you in the end, it will not be much different than manipulating any object in 3D space. Rotate, translate, scale. Except instead of changing the mesh directly, you will change the bone, which in turn changes the mesh based on painted weights. Weight painting is a pain btw :), generally called "skinning"
And you can set up some clever helpers like IK (inverse kinematics) which is often used for legs/arms because it simplifies animating that in the first place and also allows for clever stuff like dynamic proper foot placement on uneven ground.
Here's a video of the process
youtube.com/watch
Most games use both pre-baked animations and dynamic animations. E.g. a character walking is pre-baked, but the character looking at the player has to be dynamic, so the head-bone will rotate towards the player (with some limits). If the character dies it might turn into a ragdoll which would be physics driven. And AAA releases start to implement even more complex systems like procedural animation but I wouldn't worry about that.