Yassss!  I always try to explain the importance of shape design, but this video does a far better job at breaking it down than I ever could.  Very nicely done!  Great teaching method.

I've never seen a tutorial by you that didn't change the way I look at art. Every video is another watershed moment for me. You make things so easy to understand and apply, and your service to the art community is huge. IDK how many viewers you have, or supporters in general, but I gotta let you know that for the last half-decade, your videos have inspired me, and helped me grow as an artist. We don't even have the same style, but you have a way of breaking down universal concepts about art, and you do it so well.. Marco, dude, I don't know how you do it, but please keep doing it. Your work has weirdly made such an impact on my hobby that I just gotta say something. I'm a grown-ass man and you're seriously one of my heroes

this is an academy lesson, no joke.
well done explenation for every one who want to learn and improve his skills as artist.

"I think what lies at the heart of painting is a desire to return to childhood and maybe with some of the life experience we gain as adults. And, if you ask me, it is quite a profound and beautiful thing to strive for."


What a beautiful quote!

Omg, thank you!!! Such a good video! And other videos about shapes are "triangle is evil, round is good, square is sturdy", like wtf??

This was a great video, and I can tell a lot of work went into this. Great job!

I'm a digital painter and I've used only hard round brush only for 5 years. Only few times have I used textured rectangle brush, but still with semi-hard edges. Never used soft brushes that make it look airbrushed and digital and never used brushes for smoke, trees, birds and things like that. It makes the painting look boring and fabricated.

"It's about turning shapes into less, so together they can communicate more!"
This line struck my like a lighting. You make so much sense in such a short amount of time 😭 thank you!

Oh buddy, this is absolutely gorgeous! A friendly reminder about how much we should keep an eye onto our shapes and keep the canvas clean. Amazing way to show the video as well, kept my attention the whole time and made me laugh as well, something never happens with heavy courses and art theory videos.

Great job!

This video came out 6 years ago and here I am with my jaw to the floor, learning more from these short videos than I could ever learn from art classes in school

Just a point here - if you struggle with seeing shapes in paintings, try applying a strong median filter on it. The shapes then pop up nicely, though sometimes I'd advice to convert to grey levels first.

Now that I think about it, there may be an even better, clearer way - have the image in a programthat can binarize the image into black and white and adjust the threshold slider. The shapes in the painting should be basically bare in front of you.

You are the best painting teacher on youtube, absolutely no question about it. It really shows, the work that you put in these videos. It really shows how beautiful the art of painting is. Thank you for these videos

Honestly I learned some of this doing my makeup. Everyone stresses the importance of blending, which it is important, but nobody clarifies that they don’t mean to blend into oblivion - sometimes having a discernible shape is important. Like, /this/ is where your eyelid stops being black. That was the color I had the most issue with.

These videos are so high quality and they keep your attention really well! Can't say any other art tutorial videos  out there are doing this right now. Great job man!

You are such a wonderful teacher. It is precise, beautiful and very memorable (and fun :)), Thank you so very much!

You know it's a good day when a new Macro video comes out. You're an inspiration my dude

you are literally changing my life with these videos. i've never understand digital painting better until now

I can't believe I learned so much in 10 minutes! wow

Halfway through and I'm in tears, laughing... "Nature is under no obligation to provide good shapes" and then CUT TO:  that unfocused, homogeneous mass of hills and scrub!  THANK YOU for so clearly [and humorously!] illuminating such a fundamental aspect of the visual arts -

An easy way to remember C-Curve, S-Curve, Straights, is that when you write them out, it looks like CSI. Crime Scene Investigation.