A Page on a Page

Introduction

My latest Area 5.1 comic, (A Tall Tale) is based around a real-world scam email that Shiela received the other week. The premise here is why would anyone respond to being called an idiot? But "dummy's guides" have been around for a long time now covering all sorts of topics, so perhaps we have become desensitised to this sort of insult. Or maybe the meaning has altered so most figure dummy just means noob. But it still feels like a bold sell!

I decided to take it in a slightly different direction and speculate about what is it that you'll be buying. I wanted to include the email, portrayed as a more traditional junk-mail letter, so it needed to look like a real piece of paper. Here's my starting image taken from the original screen grab.

The starting image

This blog takes you through the image processing required to create a 3D version of this page.

The Transformation Process

I used the open source GIMP software, but I'm pretty sure the tools I used are available in other graphics software (Pixelmator, Photoshop, Paint.net or Pixl Editor on the web). It was a relatively simple process using a few simple transformations.

(nb. Before you start, increase the width of the canvas otherwise you'll lose the sides of the text when you stretch the page.)

•  Rotate the image by 90 degrees and then use the Curve Bend tool to curl the edges.

(In GIMP you can find this in the menu: Filters > Distorts > Curve Bend)

Adding a curve to the edges

• Do upper and lower borders, then when happy with the results, click OK and then rotate it back through 90 degrees.

• Finally use the Perspective Tool, dragging in and down the top corners to make the page appear to tilt away from you, then press enter.

(In GIMP you can find this in the menu: Tools > Transform Tools > Perspective)

Applying Perspective

I then imported the image into Sketchbook, rotated it a little and then drew the page turn-up on the bottom right corner. I later added the background graduation so that the page edge didnt get confused with the frame edge.

The final result of the transformations

It didn't take very long to do and the results are quite effective. I hope somebody found this useful.