A Disney artist showed me how to draw the adorable star from 'Wish' and it was a lot easier than I expected

• A Disney animator showed me and a small group of press how to draw the adorable star from its newest movie, "Wish."

• Tips to stretch and use guidelines to help draw limbs made the process easier than I expected.

• Star's made up of many simple shapes, including a heart and the letter "U."

During a recent visit to Disney Animation Studios to cover their new film, "Wish," I had the opportunity to learn how to draw one of the movie's characters.

A Disney aficionado since I could speak, I couldn't turn down the opportunity to learn from one of the greats. As someone who draws in their spare time, I figured I'd fare alright, but I'm not someone who usually draws fast or around others.

I had no idea if we'd be sketching the film's protagonist, villain, or another ancillary character.

When the film's associate production designer Griselda Sastrawinata-Lemay told us we'd be drawing the film's literal star, also named Star, an adorable celestial body who's on just about every piece of marketing for the movie, I breathed easier. Star seemed manageable to draw in front of an audience.

I was surprised to find just how simple and relaxing it was to make the little star using a few basic shapes, including a circle, heart, and the letter "U." It's probably the fastest I've ever drawn anything and is definitely something anyone could doodle.

I even took home a few tips that made me reconsider best practices when busting out a drawing pad.

After getting sketch paper, everyone received black and red Prismacolor pencils to bring their masterpieces to life.

This is how I knew we were getting serious. Prismacolor pencils are artist-quality.

Red pencils are used for what's called underdrawing, a light sketch to lay everything out and hide any mistakes.

Always opting to freehand, I've never really utilized the underdraw technique or have thought it necessary, but I realized as Star came together how much easier it made the entire process to guide my artwork.

Before we began, I was surprised we kicked off the drawing exercise with an arm stretch.

Instead of diving right in, Sastrawinata-Lemay encouraged us to rotate our arms in large circles as a way to warm up.

I'd never considered stretching before I drew, but it made sense to help prevent pain in the wrist or arm while drawing.

With the stretching complete, our first — and toughest — goal was to draw a large circle, which would be Star's body.

If you've ever tried to draw a perfect circle in one shot, it isn't easy. Sastrawinata-Lemay had a fix for that.

She advised us against gripping our red pencils as if we were writing to help avoid carpel tunnel in the wrist. Instead, she encouraged us to hold them delicately, like a magic wand with three fingers across the top to allow the pencil to flow more. (You can see what that looks like here.)

Sastrawinata-Lemay showed us how to use our entire arm instead of just our hand to make large, light circular motions on the page until we saw a circle shape our liking.

Like stirring ingredients in a mixing bowl, this method made it less stressful, and even relaxing, as my arm's natural rotation helped guide the shape on the paper and I didn't have to worry about making the perfect circle in one go.

After a few times around, I thought I had a relatively good-looking foundation for Star.

Then we drew curved anchor lines through the center of our circle.

Since I usually freehand, I usually skip out on making these center lines. Never again.

The simple curved horizontal and vertical lines may not seem super necessary, but they wound up being the single most important thing when drawing Star. I quickly learned my drawing was going to live or die by how well those anchor lines were set up.

It was time to draw Star's arms, legs, and head fin, by making the letter "U" five times.

I would've been totally lost without the anchor lines.

They informed me exactly where and how to go about drawing Star's limbs, which are all "U"-shaped, something that wasn't immediately obvious until it was said aloud.

The horizontal line emphasized where to start Star's left and right arms. Star's upside-down "U" fin (which Sastrawinata-Lemay likened to a chubby shark fin) is centered in between the top of the vertical line. Each of Star's legs originates out of the bottom of the vertical line, going in opposite directions.

Next, Star's soft-featured face is just a massive heart, inspired by Mickey Mouse.

Each half of the heart has to start and end on the vertical line. I started sketching in the very middle of the top half of my circle and brought the heart down to the center of its bottom half.

We started moving faster at this point (or maybe I was just moving slowly) and I noticed we were moving onto the face details already.

The group collectively decided to make a cheeky version of Star with a winking eye. I was thankful these were all pretty simple shapes so I wouldn't fall far behind.

Star's left eye is just an oval. Half of it lies above the horizontal anchor line while the other half is below. The right eye is an upside-down "U" shape, sitting atop the horizontal line. I thought of it as a little boomerang as I sketched it out.

Star's mouth is just the letter "U" again, going right in between the vertical line with another, wider "U" above it to connect the smile. (Here's an annotated version of Star if you want to try it.)

And just like that, my rough sketch of the little star boy was done.

I thought Star was shaping up to look pretty good at this point.

Now, it was time to use the black colored pencil to bring my sketch to life.

Sastrawinata-Lemay instructed us to use short, small heavier strokes on Star's left side to give him some depth and went lighter on the right side. We'd be adding some magic to the celestial being over there in a moment.

It was a little stressful making sure I didn't mess up the heart on Star's face, but everything else was just a matter of carefully going over the work I already laid out.

Since Star is made with stardust, we polished the little guy off with a flurry of little circles and asterisks.

Instead of drawing the rest of the line down Star's right sides, I drew small circles, asterisks, and tiny "X" shapes so the celestial body looked like it became one with its surroundings.

We were encouraged to have fun with it so I added some "stardust" around Star's legs and arm. I was starting to run a bit short on time, but I could've added even more if I wanted. There were no rules here. There was no right or wrong amount of circles you could add.

I also added some motion lines around the legs and fin to show movement.

My work wasn't complete until I signed it and I was more than happy with the results.

Usually, it takes me a little while to draw, but in about 20 minutes I transformed a blank canvas into a joyous scene where I could tell the star of "Wish" was looking back at me.

I was definitely proud of that.

Then I compared my work to our Disney artist's drawing and I could instantly see the flaws. But that was OK.

I could immediately see the flaws in my Star the moment I placed my drawing next to Sastrawinata-Lemay's. My left eye was a bit too big, my circle could've been a little rounder, and my heart could've been more curved, but I wasn't going to nitpick too much.

I was still happy with the outcome because I could tell when I looked at the drawing that it resembled the character. Plus, I had fun doing it. The point of the exercise wasn't to aim for perfection. It was just to draw Star.

Going into the process, some of the folks alongside me weren't sure how they'd fare. But as I looked around everyone seemed happy with their creations. I thought everyone wound up producing stars worthy of going on the fridge.

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