An honest review of the Vedal Plush

[crimson fossil]

Since I can't post pictures in the middle of the text and seeing the pictures that illustrate each point is important, I'll try and add the pictures in the order they appear and describe the corresponding picture in square brackets [like this]. I will also need to continue this thread in the replies since it is too long and has too many pictures.
I'm not writing this post because I dislike Neuro-sama or Vedal. I love their content, but I just felt like this needed to be said.

I’ll preface this with when factoring in inflation since the time they were bought, all the turtle plushies I used for these examples are a bit below the price point of the Vedal plush. The bird is more expensive, the dragon is cheaper, and the pig is too old for me to have any idea. (The checkout says duties are added on to the shipping price, so the plushies $30 price point on the site should be unburdened by tariffs.)
The other plushies aside from the pig and dragon big are also considerably larger than Vedal so, there’s that.

As someone whose favorite animal has always been turtle since childhood, and received tons of plushies, I’ve had a lot of turtle plushies over the years. Sadly for our comparison, I don’t have most of them anymore but I think I can still say
The Vedal plush isn’t a great plush in my opinion.

There are two big things that turn me off from the Vedal plush the way his shell comes together, and even more the stitching on his head.

the pattern of the shell meets itself in weird ways at the seam. It is symmetrical, but it’s not any sort of consistent. This is NOT done so that the sides of his shell perfectly mirror the way his mostly sideways facing model looks, considering it’s not a perfect match.
It just looks sloppy.

[Annotated picture of Vedal plush]

In the Vedal plush’s defense, nearly every turtle stuffed animal I had that had a similar sort of hexagonal shell pattern had weird looking parts of their shell, though Vedal’s is particularly egregious.

What really kills it is that the stitching looks terrible, most noticeably on the head. It’s super prominent all around his entire head and it’s just a lot to ignore.

The Vedal plush is at a disadvantage to a lot of other turtle plushies in that the head needs to be very round, so it’s locked out of the approach that many other turtles take which is to make a slightly more realistic turtle with a flatter head at the bottom.

[Picture of green and yellow turtle plush head]

[Picture of blue turtle plush head]

EXCEPT for the fact that Vedal’s model's head isn’t entirely round, it does flatten a bit at the bottom, and that his plushy isn’t made to be 100% faithful to his model above all else.

(case and point, if total accuracy was the goal, then we would have wanted the edge of his shell to be more like this guy to match Vedal’s wavy flaps)

[Video of blue turtle plush with flaps]

I used to have turtles with rounder heads and better stitching style, but I no longer have them.

Still, I’ll concede it is very round and I would guess they have a priority of keeping the stitches away from Vedal’s face. You might be able to do better, but it probably would be very hard to get a panel style that is both satisfactory round and away from his face.

However, I think they should have considered a different material. You can have a material that hides the stitching much better and still has the fur look short like the Vedal plush.

[picture of stuffed pig with seam circled]

I don’t have a professional camera and lighting, but you’ll have to trust me that the seam on the pig is quite subtle.

[picture of stuffed dragon]

The color change on this dragon doesn’t do it any favors, but the seam itself isn’t very visible.

I think to complete the thought I need to show this: a plush with a very round head and very good seams

[picture of bird plush from top]

[picture of bird plush from side]

The hair is long, but I hope you can trust me when I tell you the only seam on the head I have ever found is one that comes up to the beak and the connection around the beak

[picture of bird plush from bottom trying to show off the seams]

Now to be fair, this plushy has much longer fur, the beak gives the opportunity to break up the paneling, and frankly it’s a very nice plushy, made of better material then the Vedal plush. It’s not a very comparable plush, but I thought I should at least show a round head I think looks good, and this is the only one I still own.

Overall, I want to like the Vedal plush. It is cute if you can bring yourself to ignore the seams, and maybe I’ll warm up to it. But it’s worse than other turtle stuffed animals that are sold at the same price point.

[mossy ruin]

[hollow wave]

[mossy ruin]

honestly my only real issue is that the hexagons on the shell dont keep their continuity across the seem, although from what ive seen that can be a big ask, especially with mass-produced plushes like this, and it isnt really that big of an issue all things considered

[vague warren]

I agree (didn't read most of it)

[heady laurel]

if only PB had thought ahead and considered how the texture would wrap around a 3D surface when she made the model and gave it to him for free years ago

[astral marsh]

Yeah thats the very first thing i noticed,
on the bright side now there's an excuse for a v2

[mossy plaza]

/tldr

[trail current]

Who tf said PB did the model?

[winged yarrow]

she did

[crimson fossil]

I do think I gave many points to support the idea that the flaws are not entirely in service of model accuracy.
Though you could argue that the head is in service of model accuracy, I don’t really think that makes it better.

I don’t think that model accuracy should come at the expense of build quality.

Though that might be more personal preference.