but the work hasn’t began for it yet.
This is completely untrue. The work has not only begun but the microphone driver is now working in development. Before it can be enabled they need to tweak various userland parameters and configurations that are different between each mac model.
They have shape tools on the roadmap for this free image manipulation app, until then we’ll have to use the two-step method of stroking a circular selection or use a more dedicated drawing app.
In any case GIMP 3.0 is a huge rewrite under the hood and seems to be attracting more contributors now, which is a good sign.