Every Rosebud has its thorns

And this little Fomantis is about to reveal hers!


My capture attempt for a Fomantis. Signature on the bottom left, including my forum SN. Using coloured pencils on an A5 sketchpad. I am really bad at drawing and this is honestly my first time trying in a few years. I don't get colours and backgrounds pls send help. I tried to get the shading but I don't think I did it so well.

Thanks @Morru; for babysitting me through the process man.

EDIT: So I guess this qualifies for the Alola Art challenge?

 

Claim!

 

Hi! Fomantis is a cute alola mon whose evolution, Lurantis, is good enough that Game freak thought would be a great Totem Challenge! Let's see if you catch this tropical bug/grass creature! Fomantis is simple so it shouldn't be too difficult.

Pokemon Appearance:

For someone whose "first time trying in a few years," I would say you should give yourself some more credit! ^.^ Fomantis is drawn very well! I like its angry pose with its left arm (my right side facing the computer) pointing outward sassily to summon the leaf storm is adorable. The only thing I can see you can work on a little in this department is have its body be a little thinner, but that is much too minor to be distracting! I say pat yourself on the back! The curved red line on its tummy shows that you understand that its body is round and the leaves on its head are great.

Background:

I'm glad that you made an attempt to make a background for Fomantis! Placing them in a context gives works so much more depth! They are difficult since everything about the background plays into the overall reading of the work. You shouldn't be too nervous, when putting something in. It can be simple or it can be complex, but placing your pokemon somewhere is better than no where at all! Fomantis ingame is a very tropical pokemon and it lives in the lushest spots on Alola and you are trying to hint that with the blades of grass or the flowers. I also see that you made an attempt to fill the scary empty space of the sky with a few clouds. I'm glad you activated these space even with the minimal decoration. By doing so you activate your surroundings and help bring out your pokemon in the spotlight!

Technique and Composition:

I'm not going to rail on you too much because this is simple, but I would like a point out a few things that can help you down the road. You've demonstrated to me that you are ready to keep getting better and I have some things I want you to try out later on (if you want to):

Centering the Object of the Drawing: While I don't really mind it in this piece, but I would recommend playing around with placing your guy off center, maybe to the right or two the left a little. There is a thing called rule of thirds that says that you can make a really interesting composition just by putting your object almost 1/3 into the right or left, bottom or top of the page!

Colored Pencil technique: I see that you have some semblance of shading under Fomantis's neck leaves by drawing really heavily and really lightly on its belly. I would recommend continuing that and exaggerating those differences! But try blending colors as well! Colored pencils are great for mixing colors by drawing over them! By playing around with both you'll get a much wider variety of colors and values. Right now it appears that you were constrained by your choices in colors, but you can always blend colors together or get more variety in colored pencils. There is a reason why colored pencil packs come with black and while colored pencils! You can hatch black or white on top of a color for values. (Also red on green, blue on orange, and yellow on purple)

Presentation:

I just want to point one other thing, but I'm not counting this against you. I would like to tank you for the signature and the photo of the spiral of the notebook to show that it yours, but just your signature is needed to prove that it was you who drawn the work! I'll have to take away because I can see your prongs and spiral and table at higher ranks, but for now I'll let it slide. We're picky about this is becuase it helps us and yourself read your artwork. You can totally crop it out in any default photo editing program and takes only 30-45 seconds or less depending on how fast you are to crop it correctly! But this is just an FYI. Your photograph is lit fine, I have no problems there!

Conclusion:

I think for your first drawing in a while you have met the requirements needed for a simple mon. I want to see you continue in art! You have demonstrated that you have what it takes to get Fomantis and be a URPG artist. I do encourage you, though, especially if you go for higher rank pokemon, to continue to challenge yourself as you did here! Art is tough, but I'm glad you decided to go for it anyway!

Have your fomantis 35/35

 

Also this does qualify for Alola art challenge have your extra bit of money!

 

Thank you for the curation! I've never really worked with colour pencils before and I was limited for choice with them. I'll definitely try improving my shading with the black and white pencils, I didn't really think of that. I'll try to take on all of this criticism for next time. Claiming Fomantis and 5k for the Alolan Art challenge.