Quest Sprout

Qwest! Quest Sprout is a small green hero from a fantasy world where everyone and everything's weapon of choice is... a sword. Quest Sprout is always wandering about asking the locals if they need help on a "qwest!" and he'll always take the job, even if it's a boring old escort quest!! Quest Sprout is one of the fan-favorite characters in the webcomic Swords. First appearing in the May 1, 2020 comic, Quest Sprout just wandered out of the woodlands and into the local bar, the Adventur'r's Tavern ("you'll never find a more wholesome hive of cuddles and emotional support"), looking for adventure and disappointed when there wasn't anything for them to do. Since then, they've appeared in 63 episodes (and counting), making friends wherever they go. In December of 2021, creator Matthew J Wills teamed up with Makeship to run a crowdfunding campaign for a Quest Sprout plush. It was successful, but so many fans wanted another chance at Quest, there was a "Timewarp" campaign earlier this year for Quest Sprout 2.0. It's the same creation, though this time it's shipped in a purple drawstring bag. Exclusive! Quest Sprout is just a baby (it's right there in the name), so they're just a small little ball. Comparing them to human characters in the comic, this 8⅜" tall plush is about half the size "real" Quest would be. It's a simple, round body with four stubby limbs and a pair of leaves growing out the top. Quest is mainly a pale green, with a yellow spot signifying the location of its belly (you know, like a "field spot" on a melon) and an adorable smile right between two tiny black eyes. All the highlights in the art - on the cheeks, around the belly, and even on one of the leaves - are stitched in parts of the plush, not just dyed on. Makeship even did the outlining on the mouth in black, instead of just having the pink and magenta embroidery butt up against each other. Although they've been presented with other choices, Quest Sprout's weapon of choice is a little wooden sword. It even gets its own blankie when it's time for bed, and got to be a parrot ("parry-ot"?) when Quest dressed up as a pirate for Halloween! Plush Sprout gets the sword, also plush and stitched permanently to the right hand. You could probably remove it with nothing more than a seam ripper, but why would you want to? What would you do with it then? Quest Sprout doesn't have fingers, and only a pest would try to steal this sword from its rightful owner. The sword is stitched with brown lines to make it look like wood grain, rather than just being a tan shape. The Quest Sprout plushes have appeared in-universe, too, making this double as a prop replica. The "Timewarp" plushes have a small silver "2nd Edition" button sewn into the bottom, so the people who backed the original campaign still have something unique. Isn't that considerate! There's a campaign for a Quest Sprout vinyl figure running right now. If I'd known it was coming, I'd have waited for that instead of getting the plush (vinyls are more in our wheelhouse here than stuffed animals), but hey, I now have three plushes based on webcomics, so Quest fits right into that collection perfectly. If you want the vinyl, though, there are still a few days left, so act right now. -- 09/27/23