The Wolverine!

I made this guy, Wolverine from Marvel Comics X-Men, in record time (about two days). My superhero main body is completely figured out which made things easy. But with this guy I wanted to try a new cartoony body. I had a dream...this is true...I dreamed a whole toy store, filled with amazing new toys that when I awoke I was disappointed to realize were not real! I sketched as many of the toys as I could remember (notepad by the bed, kids, is essential!!)

The little drawing of Wolverine in costume is the sketch I made based on the dream Wolverine. He was in his Byrne era costume but with the stripes on his side from the blue and yellow costume. I don't know my Wolverine history but I don't think he ever mixed the two eras in costume form. Anyway, once I started sketching my plans I realized that what I really wanted to make was not the costumed Wolverine at all. What I wanted was a jeans and t-shirt Wolvie! Just the casual cool Logan character seen in more leisurely scenes.
So off came the gloves and boots. This made it a whole lot easier for color as well. I don't know that I've got the yarn for Wolverine's Brownish-red/tan-yellow costume. But I do have deep maroon and grey-blue yarn! I also sketched up a profile of Wolverine's head in order to figure out the parts I'd neet to make to get the right shape. "Keep It Simple, Stupid" is a motto I always try to follow in my work (drawing and crochet). Busying something up almost never turns out well. In my past crochet projects I've tried to make the head shape by increasing and decreasing as I go around the head. Bah! Too much trouble.

Wolverine before hair! You can sort of make out that I made a long tube for his head and neck. Just straight up stitching until it felt like the right length. Then I made a chin, again based on scale of everything and my profile sketch, until it looked right. Add ears and nose which are just flat stitched and curled or folded into the right shapes. Pop on some eyes and Bob's your uncle.

Here's the completed Wolverine by the light of day! The body is exactly the same as my generic Superhero body pattern, the arms are almost the same. I think I increased the diameter of all segments for cartooniness and Popeye style forearms. I returned to mitten hands for this guy because it just seemed to call for a simpler approach (K.I.S.S.)
You will notice two things are missing - arm hair and claws. Claws are coming. Arm hair I tried in several different ways but nothing looked right. Once I get it figured out I'll post new pictures with the arm hair added.


Here's Wolverine's butt! You can see that he's sturdy enough to actually stand on his own. Most of the male hero dolls are able to. The girls can't at all because I give them such tiny feet.
"You lookin' at me, bub?"

Yarn!
j.