How about a thumb pin like this?  final-knob1

Pretty tough?   Not really!  Start with your basic cylinder with about 172 by 100 divisions:basic-cyl2

Now a little masking using Ctrl-drag:first-mask3

Invert  (ctrl-tap outside the model) and inflate (Deformation subpallet):inflate4

Now for some stripes.   On the masking subpallet, Mask All, and then set sel and skip to 3 and 8.   Hit Col for a nice striped mask:stripe-mask5

Let’s restrict to our inflated area plus a nice little edge:limit-stripes6

Inflate again:second-inflate7

Pretty good, but I like ’em all twisty on thumb grips.  Grab and invert a quick selection:third-mask8

And Twist a couple of times (Deformation subpallet):twist9

A quick mask and deflate on the body, add a texture, and it’s done:final-knob10

Time to model, about 3 minutes.