Individual step-by-step images under the cut.

Basic conceptual & compositional sketch

Base image, lower half is a photo and the spiral portion is illustrated

Added the background (textures downloaded from cgtextures.com)

Some dodging & burning to determine light source

Base Plant (downloaded from cgtextures.com)

More plants

added flowers

Added the bud at the end of the spiral & illustrated vines and extra plants

More highlights and shadows to add depth, added the glow at the bud

Applied tattoos on skin & the cracking effect

Added stronger highlights at the edge & humming birds (downloaded from morguefile.com)

Added smoke

Desaturated the colours (Now that I look at this again, I almost like this version for the final)

More colour alterations... and done :3

Hope this serves as an eye-opener to how I edit my stuff. The final version w/ closeups can be seen here.