Typography

I don't really know if this is the correct place to put this question - please feel free to move it if you wish - but I was wondering if there's anyone out there who is really skilled with font creation and colouring et cetera, who could teach me to create an effect like the tarnished gold shown here: http://pics.mobygames.com/images/cov...1562739-00.jpg
My book is almost ready to send off to be printed, and I was hoping to make the title look something close to that. Is anyone aware of a method of producing that result? Or should I just sniff around until I can contract someone to do it for me?

You would most likely need a 3D app like Blender which is free or 3D studio max, Maya etc to set up some 3D text and then you light it and texture it to suite. You can get away with photoshops built in 2D lighting for stuff including font lettering but I think the 3D route gives you much more control.

Do text is 3D is usually not too hard since the apps normally have a vector font (like true type TTF) to 3D import. Then you can bend or extrude them a bit then its just a case of texturing and lighting. The texturing can usually come from a 3rd party texture house like CGTextures (check out the bottom of http://www.cgtextures.com/textures.php?t=browse&q=579) and then lighting is usually not too hard either.

Using a 3d app is one way as redrobes says, but another way would be to use something like gimp or serif drawplus. I make this in Serif drawplus in less than 5 mins. It's just a case of using a metallic texture and using a bevel effect on the text. it's a quick and dirty one but with a little more time you can make it look much better.

Holy mother of mercy. That looks incredible.

Oh, and did Ravells mention there's a free version of DrawPlus?. I don't remember the features it leaves out, but I think I've done similar stuff to the nice metallic title above.