Daniel Lieske, The Journey Begins, 2006. (enlarge).

"The image was created in 2006 for the 19th CG Challenge 'The Journey Begins' on CGSociety.org and it eventually won the second prize in this competition," Lieske write on a page entirely devoted to the making of this work.

The eminently browsable site of Daniel Lieske also includes a retrospective gallery that's interesting especially for the evolution of a comic-book style into more finely detailed and rendered work.

...is a Digital Artist located in the small town of Warendorf, Germany. Born and raised at the Teutoburger Forest, he holds lots of childhood memories of adventures in the woods. His passion for trees and nature themes is visible through his artwork and still keeps to inspire him. Daniel started to work in game development in 1999 and today works as a Concept Artist for a big german game studio.

Bio from his commercial portfolio at Digital Decoy

The self-portrait above is from his blog.