G[r]eek Alphabet : H is for Heracles

So yes, I'm that sort of classicist. Heracles not Hercules ;-)

My first decision was that I decided that Heracles got a bit burnty and anyway he was Greek so why would he be all pale? So I got a stronger coloured felt for the flesh. Then I struggled with the colour of the lion. I really wanted this piece of fabric I thought my mum had which was furry. But sadly it has vanished. So I had to choose between some delish yellow satin from a friend or the same orangey stuff as the apple in A and cheshire cat in C. I decided on this finally

But then I needed a fabric for the letter H. I had originally thought of the fake brown leather like for letter A, 

But looking at it together, it goes together almost too well, and wouldn't be distinguishable against Heracles himself.

I then debated a green ribbon which became my final choice.

For this letter I basically made all the pieces, then pinned them into place and started sewing down the top layer first. At this point I found that I should have made more of an overlap for the body behind the H an a right hand side foot. I added an extra bit of felt for the foot and I just had to continuously carefully adjust the ribbon position to keep the exactness of the cutting of the fabric as discreet as possible.

For the lion skin that Heracles wears but is mainly here as a modest prop I started out just giving it a mane and some folds.

Having sewn the H down as well, and the body mostly I realised that as the cutting and layout had ended up, Heracles had more face hidden than my original design called for, which I didn't like. So I undid some of the stitching of the green ribbon to pull the head in front of the H. I then started sewing the hair followed by the eyes and mouth.

The hair colour turned out to be a bit light so I sewed some extra stitches in a darker colour. You can see it here where half the hair has only the light colour and half doesn't

Then I realised the lionskin looked a bit undefined so I added in a brown some leg and paw details.

And we're done. I'm faintly debating this one as a friend who is not so familiar with Greek myth wasn't sure what was depicted - she wondered if it was Jesus or a wrong colour Hulk!

I'm wondering about including a club but I like the design as is.