OK, so I went all out and combined a few things and created this (thanx for the 3D lettering tutorial):
Utilizing another tutorial for the metal finish, once I had the plaque constructed, I then cleared the center, saved it as a .gif then imported it over the metal center that you now see, which was shaped using the alpha thingy (lol). It probably would've been a tad better if the dark bottom and light top were inverted to more closely coincide with the outline though.