What type of Designer do I need??

Greetings,

So I am looking for a graphics designer to create a "character" / graphics for a website we are developing. I have the web developer, but not a graphics designer, and I am struggling with how to go about even requesting one. Primarily because I am not familiar with what technology is used to generate the type of graphics I am looking for. Perhaps this forum can help.

If you would look at the following images:
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_sear...tboxID=4170318


This is almost EXACTLY what I am looking for. This high quality character is exactly what I want, but with different poses, and access to the designer to make several mods throught the life of the project.

How did they make this critter? What technology? How hard is this? Who knows how to do these type of graphic images?

Any info would be helpful, and if anyone does this kind of work, that would even be more helpful

Alan