FO: A Birthday Hulk

A friend of mine contacted me to see if I could make a Hulk doll for her son's birthday. I did a quick search for patterns, but I didn't find any that I loved out there so I decided to make my own :) 

Isn't he ... Hulk-ish?! I love how he turned out :) I ended up taking elements from other designs and combining them for my Hulk. He was quite a learning experience for me - I now know that I work much better with a pattern at my disposal, lol. Anyway, details about Mr. Hulk here. 

His arms were by far the most difficult part - I actually had most everything else made and played around until I finally went in search of an arm pattern. I specifically wanted him to have muscular arms, which turns out is not an easy thing to do in a crocheted tube that's only about 8 stitches around. After trying about 6 different arms and hating them, I had the idea to look in the book AmiguruME by Allison Hoffman - the whole book is basically separate patterns for body parts and details that you can combine to make what/whoever you want. And she had a pattern for muscular arms! They even had thumbs :) I used scrap yarn to pull the thumbs down on to the hand and tuck them together to make a fist, which looks really good in person - it was very difficult to photograph. I added pip cleaners in the arms to make them pose-able too.

His hair is actually just a pom pom. I tied the pom pom to the head (spacing out the tied spots so it doesn't twist around), and then gave him a rough hair cut. The center tie of the pom pom ever worked out to look like his hair is parted. His eyebrows and abs are embroidered on with yarn - my original plan was to make 3-D muscles on his chest, but everything I tried just looked like a cluster of boobs, lol, so embroidery won out. You can see the muscle definition in his arms (and kind of his fist). For his pants I did lots of switching between the purple and green so it looks like the edges are ripped like the real Hulk. 

I attached his legs so he can sit down - well, he can do a split which makes him sit, lol. As far as yarn, I used a mystery green acrylic yarn I was given for the body (that's the 3rd project in a row I've used this yarn for - it's the perfect color!), Red Heart With Love in Violet for his pants, and Caron Simply Soft in Dark Sage for his hair along with some scraps of black yarn for the embroidery. He has 10 mm safety eyes plus there are green pipe cleaners inside the arms.

The obligatory back view. Don't mind his hair, I accidentally fluffed it up when positioning him. 

Hulk Smash!

I'm really happy with how he turned out, even if he was more work than I expected. My husband says his head looks like an angry pea, lol. I think he kinds of look like the Jolly Green Giant c but angry and with a Hulk body, lol. I think it's the 60s mop-top hair do. I already gave him to my customer and she liked him, so I hope her son does too!