Paper man cutout problems

Hi

I'm currently working on a project where a paper man rises out of a book and does his little animation thing. Everything is working perfectly, but the art director has decided that it would look even better if we create an indent from where he rises up.

I have tried multiple things. I cant use Boolean because the mesh needs to be smoothed (and thus cant project a curve on the geometry and extrude it in either). I thought of using a bump map and animating its depth, but it would be rather inaccurate trying to guess where the bump would be and would need some trial and error and I would probably never get it spot on anyways.

So, my question is, is there some obviously simple way of doing this that I'm overlooking? Or is there a complex way that would work better? I was considering if I could do it in aftereffects, but I don't have much experience with that and don't know where to start.

Any help will be much appreciated

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.