Thanks for the replies!
Bend: Vertical lines don't stay vertical.
Node sculpting: Challenging, but I'll keep trying. Maybe just adding nodes and moving them with the keyboard, one vertical "line" after another, might work for me.
Trying the envelope deformation now. Why are the bend paths not vertical/horizontal like in the example link? The square of the four bend paths is rotated which makes them harder to adjust.
![Image](http://i.imgur.com/6xIfKNu.png)