Not bad!! And really good that you're working to improve on your art. :3 It shows~! I love seeing artists experiment with things.

Okay, critique! Hopefully this helps/I don't sound too mean.. D: *worry*

Number one thing - you need way more light/dark contrast. You have really good contrast of hue here, but if you were to make this greyscale, all you would see is middle grays. Middle gray values can work well, especially if you're doing a graphic illustration (flats, lineart, etc), but when you're trying to describe a form like this, pushing your value is the key.

My biggest suggestion is to make your darks darker and lights lighter. I can understand what you were trying to do in terms of making Bulbasaur sort of appear from the void of the background, but you can definitely add some darker darks in there. And if you don't really want to add darker spots where you shaded, I'd start with a darker background.

In terms of your light, I.. Actually I can't tell if you used white or a really light purple in there. That's not a good thing. Because your green and purple are so saturated (in comparison), the color looks white. White completely flattens a picture out. If you're going to use that light purple to do the highlights, I'd go with a more saturated purple. I know you said saturated colors aren't your thing, but it's just a little too grey to do you any favors here. Even if you bump the saturation up like, 30% on that one color, it would look a lot better.

When you work with hue contrasts, such as green and purple, it is super easy for the picture to flatten out. That's why I'm not really rockin' the light purple highlight. I LOVE the spaces where you let the green be the highlighting color - such as by his eyes, and on his nose, and on the reflected light of his chin/bulb. For highlighting, I'd really suggest using a green with just a little bit more yellow. Putting a cool(/grey/white) color over a warm color is going to make the warm color look muddy and flat. And yes, the green here is the 'warm' color because your lavenders and purples are so cool. Relativity is the key!

That's not to say that cool colors can't be highlighting colors. Of course they can! It doesn't work here because you have too many middle greys, and the places where you did add the white (on his stomach, forehead, ears, leg, claws) really stick out to me because that whole spot has just turned kind of muddy.

Innnnn short, the lavender/white highlights really flatten this. It would look better if you didn't have any highlight rather then use that lavender to do the job for ya.

I do, however, love the way you did the eyes. The highlighting/shading/whatever you did there? It's great. His eyes pop the most to me.

I LOVE the shading you did on Bulbasaur's face - you get a really good sense of form and the reflected light is amazing. I don't really see that anywhere else, though! You start to have it on the bulb, but on the legs you lose that kind of shading and it sort of flattens the image out for me.

Umm but anyway, okay. On to things I am in love with. I am really in love with those eyes, and with the spots. The places where there is a sharper edge really work well here, since you're shading with a soft brush - the legs (where they meet the background), the ear that is touching the bulb, the spots, the eyes. Those are the spots I am rocking the most. I would love to see some more contrast in texture in that sense - some really hard edges.

I LOVE the colors you picked. "Purple" and "green" are really generic terms, but this is definitely your purple and green. IDK if that makes sense... It's very much within your palette, judging from other work I have seen by you, and I am glad to see that even though you are trying new things you are still staying true to yourself. (:

The slight orange in the eyes, or green rather, works really well. Hell, I thought it was orange, lol. Stuff like that very subtly elsewhere will make this pop a lot. That's another reason why the light lavender/white works so well - because of the way you used your purple and green. That slight green does look orange or brown, and it contrasts super well with the cool lavender color you used for the eyes.

I hope this helps, and that you definitely continue to experiment like this!! I'd love to see some more Pokemon paintings by you!