Here are some real life wolverine sketches, using the website http://www.naturesdesigntaxidermy.com as reference. I know you wouldn't think taxidermy and wildlife conservation go hand in hand but the site actually has some good quality galleries with plenty of poses from live animals.
In this first set of sketches, I tried to interpret the fur shading. One thing's for sure, this character is going to need a lot of fur texturing! I'll stick to bump mapped materials for simplicity. On the right is some close-ups of the facial structure from a couple of angles which will come in handy in the modelling phase.
For these sketches I did away with the fur shading to get a clearer idea of the animal's shape. Very bulky, but not fat. Also, once the shading is gone you can see just how similar a Wolverine looks to a miniature bear. At the bottom is the only detail of a wolverine paw underside I could find.
