It looks like
Mettle ShapeShifter AE [link] is a better choice for you here -- you want to both extrude and distort a flat shape, not just bend it.
AE doesn't do this sort of work out-of-the-box, but Chris Bobotis and his team at Mettle have built some very cool plugins to let you do more 3D work in AE. Search this forum for ShapeShifter and pay extra attention to the posts by Chris Bobotis and Tudor "Ted" Jelescu.
Zaxwerks Invigorator Pro is another option for doing 3D work in AE, but I don't think it's as well-suited to your particular need as ShapeShifter.
Walter Soyka
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