I'm modelling a Warhammer Space Marine pauldron (shoulder armour), and for the life of me I can't figure out how to wrap a circle/cylinder to it's curved surface in a way that doesn't drastically warp the circular shape.
In the above, you can see the pauldron (which has a steep Y/Z axis curve, and shallow X/Y axis curve), and the shape I'm wanting to wrap.
In the next two images, you can see the shape after my attempt to wrap it. This was achieved by using a plane shrinkwrapped to the pauldron, and transfering it's effect to the cylinder via a surface deform modifier. However, as you can see, the circle is now very warped in the X axis (2nd image) - and isn't really circular at all.
Thus far, my only successful means of improving the shape is to use a lattice to adjust it into a more circular shape, but (as per the below image) you can see this leaves the X axis edges thicker.
Is there a better way to achieve a uniform wrap that I'm missing?
For context, the effect I'm trying to achieve is similar to below, where the circle is uniform in width, height and depth across the pauldron (Also, as I know Games Workshop use digital modelling to produce their plastic parts, it shows it can be done... somehow):
