Laying eye shapes on a curved character head surface

Question

Beginner Question-- I'm trying to model eyes like EvilCorp gets on the eyes of some of its more "cartoony" models (examples: this one or this other one). The eye shapes on both of those images aren't built into the head-- they seem like they're just on top of the head, like buttons on clothing-- but sort of wrapped along the underlying head shape.

In both cases, it seems like I should be able to model out head shapes and then have cylinders sort of wrap onto the head shapes, but I can't seem to figure out how to get that to work, how to get cylinders or squares or anything to wrap along a curved surface. I've tried using a shrinkwrap modifier like was recommended over here but that doesn't seem to work right.

Suggestions? Am I headed in the right direction looking at shrinkwrap? Or any suggestions on good tutorials? Thanks.

Answer 1

1 Select your cylinder.
2 In properties select the chain link icon.
3 Select in [Add Object Constraint] the "Track to" option.
4 Target: choose the sphere. NOTE: The origin of both objects should be in their center for this to work.
5 Try different "To:" and "Up:" combinations until the flat side of the cylinder is aiming at the sphere.
6 To move the cylinder against the sphere use the translation manipulator, it normally says: "Global" next to it, change that to "Normal" and one of the manipulators arrows will align to the sphere to allow you to translate it till they connect.