What is a Technical Artist anyway? This is a question I get a lot whenever somebody asks me about my job. Is it an artist who draws assets? No.A developer? Not really.A mythical creature with a unique set of skills? Yes! As far as I can remember, I always loved learning new things and acquiring new skills. When I was about 10, I started folding origami, later in elementary school I started editing in Photoshop and in high school I… Read more: Technically, an Artist

I wasn’t sure how to write this post because when this idea came to me I had a very specific answer in mind to the question in the title, but while thinking about it I thought about a million different things I’d like to say. If I said only the answer it would be too short and you wouldn’t get the whole picture. But if I told the whole story it would be way too long and who would want… Read more: Why do I still dance tango?

In recent years I’ve noticed the rise of online influencers, or just regular people who edit videos on their phones. To me, a person who has dabbled in video editing since at least 12 years ago this was always peculiar since in those days video editing on a phone was not just difficult, but impossible. Now don’t get me wrong, I am very well aware of how much technology has advanced and what are the capabilities of modern devices, but… Read more: Editing a simple reel on a phone vs. on a PC

New Year’s resolutions are kind of a cliche and most people either do it for the meme or just from the New Year enthusiasm, and then they die out in a couple of weeks. But, I do think they can be used as a tool for good changes and fun experiments so here are my experiences with them. My previous experiences I have two types of experiences with New Year’s resolutions and neither is the classic one you think of… Read more: How to keep your New Year’s resolutions… maybe… it kinda worked for me…

As you excitedly unpack your new picture frame, you’re hit with a disappointing discovery: the glass is broken. While it’s not a huge issue and the frame wasn’t particularly expensive, it’s still frustrating to have your plans shattered, no matter how small they may have been. Usually, you would just throw away the frame, because what else can you do? Well, this time, I had an idea. This idea came as a marriage between two techniques: stained glass and kintsugi.… Read more: Kintsugi Stained Glass – Embracing Imperfections to Create Art

Hey there reader, long time no see. Well, if you want to be technical about it I don’t see you while you’re reading this, but you get what I mean. I’ll be honest, I’m writing a blog post about coasters just as a way to get back in the game. The truth is that in previous months I’ve started writing posts on a couple of topics but I was struggling to finish them. It’s been too long since I’ve written… Read more: Patterned plywood coasters

I apologize in advance to farmers who accidentally run into this article. I’m not talking about any goats here, I’m summarizing how much a year-long making project can cost. I’m writing this for a single reason – because it is something that I would’ve loved to have read before embarking on such a journey. I’ll be honest, the cost was a concern before starting this. From previous experiences, I knew making can be a costly hobby. There are a lot… Read more: How much does a GoaT cost?

Oh boy, did I take some time writing this one? From a weekly schedule to one post per month. Well, I needed a bit of rest from the constant pressure of having to publish something every week. And that actually ties very well with the subject of this post because the lack of time while having said pressure is the main culprit behind most of my worst projects from the previous year. The previous post about the best projects is… Read more: My worst 5 projects of GoAT

Well, what is this? The year is over. The project is finished. There are no more Joker cards. But, there is still a couple of things I wish to say about this project. It has been an incredible experience. It was challenging, rewarding, difficult, sometimes annoying and strenuous, and it had its highlights and lowlights. First, let’s focus on the highlights. Through the year, I’ve learned many new and different things, skills, stuff about myself, and who knows what else.… Read more: My top 5 projects of GoAT

In the previous post, I said that that was the last numbered card in the deck. And that is true, but whoever ever saw one of my previous projects, they’ve seen that I always have an extra entry. In project 365 I had 366 photos, in project 52, I had 53, and so on. And besides, the deck also has Joker cards, and there was an extra week left in the year. A couple of weeks ago when I made… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">JOKER</span> – Make an Origami GoAT

And so, 52 weeks have already passed. This is the 52nd thing I’ve made for this challenge and the last numbered card in the deck. As you can see, this is the reason why the previous week’s project was making a MIDI keyboard. I was always interested in music, mostly as an avid listener, but here and there I also looked up a bit about the process of making it. In this department, I mostly just watched Adam Neely and… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">A♥</span> – Make a song

This is maybe the project that gave me the most trouble during this whole challenge. I first started working on it in September, but I couldn’t make it work the way I wanted to so I left it for later. And of course, since this is a project that I had to do, I couldn’t just discard it, so naturally, I left it for the very end of the project. The reason why I had to do it will be… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">2♥</span> – Make a MIDI keyboard

I’m not sure how, but at some point I’ve stumbled upon a photo of a DIY lamp and I was immediately hooked. The thing is, I needed a bedside lamp for a long time now, but I could never decide to buy one because lamps are surprisingly expensive. So when I realized that this is something you could DIY, I was set on making one on my own. The final shape of this one came together slowly. The one I… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">3♥</span> – Make a lamp

Once again, the inspiration for this comes from my childhood. My best friend from elementary school had an Eifell tower made out of matchsticks. I always admired it. If you didn’t know it, you probably wouldn’t have guessed it was made out of matchsticks. The finish was really nice and clean. And when you are a small kid, it is even more grandiose because it is huge compared to you. If I remember the story correctly, his father had made… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">4♥</span> – Make a matchstick house

Photography is one of my oldest hobbies. I got my first camera 10 years ago mostly because it looked cool and professional. It was a Fujifilm Finepix S3200. It looked like a DSLR and it had a viewfinder, which was immeasurably fun for me at that time (I still like shooting through the viewfinder more than in any other way). The next camera I got only 2 years later and it is the camera I’m still using. This time it… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">5♥</span> – Make a photograph

Some of my favorite projects in this challenge are those that are practical. I would’ve made this regardless of whether it was for the challenge or not. It was just something I need. Using it as the project for this week is just a bonus. The reason why I needed this is because I have a rather small kitchen and even smaller drawers which were overflowing from these large pieces of cutlery. The obvious solution is to get some hooks… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">6♥</span> – Make a kitchen wall panel storage thingy (with a spice rack)

This challenge is really taking its’ toll. Who would’ve guessed that it would be hard to make something new every week for a whole year? Well, I kinda expected it but went into it anyway. It’s not even that I’m missing ideas, but the ideas I have are mostly a bit complex or require specific materials and I simply don’t have the time to prepare for them and make them in a week. Considering what I’ve just written it is… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">7♥</span> – Make Leonardo da Vinci’s bridge

I already had a couple of abstract projects in this challenge, “Make a break” and “Make a dream come true“. This project however is a bit different from them. Even though it is mostly abstract, there is also a physical thing I made. The thing I made is very simple, it is just a 3D model of a dopamine molecule. But what I find more interesting is why I made it at all. It started with this video popping up… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">8♥</span> – Make dopamine

The idea for this comes straight from my girlfriend. She made one for me as a gift and I’ve liked it so much, I wanted to make one on my own. She also gave me a lot of useful tips. This is already one of my favorite projects of this year. It was really fun to make because it combines a lot of different things. You have woodworking, working with paper, design, and electronics. When choosing a theme for the… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">9♥</span> – Make a shadow box

Dear reader, do you ever get a mental block because a task at hand is tedious? It is not even hard per se, and you actually really want to do it (well, you don’t really want to do it, but you want the end result), but you get totally blocked and can’t even motivate yourself to start working on it. Well, that happened to me with this week’s project. I knew exactly what I need to do and how hard… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">10♥</span> – Make my keyboard glow

The idea for this comes from my girlfriend. Since she just became an aunt a couple of days ago, she thought it’d be nice to gift a plushie to the baby. And of course, I immediately wanted to make it. I did think about making a plushie a long time ago, but they can be a bit complicated depending on what are you making. For example, if you want to make an animal, you really need to know what you’re… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">J♥</span> – Make a plushie

I’ve noticed you can see if I had a tough week by the project I made at the end of it. If it’s been tough, you’re going to get something like this. A simple project which can be done in a couple of hours at most. The chatterbox came to my mind because I’ve seen it recently in the new season of Taskmaster (highly recommend this show, especially season 5). It is just another thing that makes me reminisce about… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">Q♥</span> – Make a paper chatterbox

My friends and I are playing Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay for several months now (Warhammer Wednesdays as we call them). This is a role-playing game similar to Dungeons & Dragons. Even though we’ve been playing it for so long, it was just a couple of weeks ago that I realized I own a 3D printer and I can print miniatures for our small party of adventurers. I already knew about Hero Forge, an awesome website where you can customize your character… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">K♥</span> – Make a Warhammer miniature

Decoupage is as classic a craft as it gets. It is the art of decorating an object by gluing colored paper cutouts onto it. The origins of the technique can be traced back to the 12th century. The name comes from the French word decouper meaning to cut out. Today, those who don’t know much about it usually think it’s either something for kids to play around with or kitsch flowers everywhere. Even though both of those can be true, decoupage has a… Read more: <span style="color: black;">A♣</span> – Make a decoupage box

This week’s title could’ve been a lot of things: Make a once in a lifetime trip/experience, Make memories; or if you want to be really technical; Make a photograph. There is no special reason why I chose this title in the end except that it sounded the best to me. But this title is true. This story begins around 5 to 6 years ago when I discovered Christo and Jeanne-Claude. I immediately fell in love with their art and their… Read more: <span style="color: black;">2♣</span> – Make a dream come true

Have a Kit Kat… Oops, wrong slogan, but I wouldn’t mind having a Kit Kat right now. Anyway, I have decided to take a little break this week. But even that is kinda interesting within this project. Because even this technically fits the project. It is making something. I have thought about this for a while now. Making doesn’t have to be just physically making something. You can ‘make’ a lot of abstract things – make friends, make a mistake,… Read more: <span style="color: black;">3♣</span> – Make a break

This project doesn’t really have a cool story behind it. When I was making a list of potential projects, clay was one of the ideas just because it is a classic material for making stuff. Clay is very versatile so you can use it for almost anything you need. There wasn’t anything I really needed though, so I was searching for what could I make and I stumbled upon these leaf thingies. I’m not sure what is their purpose, but… Read more: <span style="color: black;">4♣</span> – Make something out of clay

This is a very interesting project coming from me, considering I don’t drink alcohol. And yes, you can make cocktails without alcohol, and I’m sure there are great ones, but to me, that seems like just mixing juices and that is not that fun. This idea came from my girlfriend because she wanted to be the cool girl on the beach with a cocktail in her hand so I had to make that happen. Since we were in Greece, the… Read more: <span style="color: black;">5♣</span> – Make a cocktail

Two weeks in a row we have a very childhood related projects. Last week was the pinwheel and this week a sand castle. I don’t know if there is a person who never wanted to build one, but until now, I didn’t really have a chance. I was at the sea only a couple of times in my life and it was in Montenegro. And they are definitely not famous for sandy beaches. This year however, I am on Skiathos,… Read more: <span style="color: black;">6♣</span> – Make a sand castle

This one is straight from childhood. A blast from the past. Who hasn’t made one of these and ran with it in their hands. It is just a source of endless fun when you are a kid. But I’ll admit, it’s still fun when you’re a bit grown up. This is an extremely quick and easy project so there was no reason not to do it. Especially when I backed out from my original plan for this week at the… Read more: <span style="color: black;">7♣</span> – Make a pinwheel

I was talking with my friends about how I don’t know what I’m gonna do for this week while they were trying to convince me to play Don’t Starve Together. Their arguments were how cooking something in the game could be a project. I declined that idea because last week’s project was cooking. Well, baking, but you get the point. Then they suggested I could build walls in the game and that could be the project. While this seemed too… Read more: <span style="color: black;">8♣</span> – Make a house… in Sims

I have an interesting relationship with cooking. I kinda know how to cook, but I almost never cook everyday stuff. You know, stuff to actually feed myself. I much more prefer to cook interesting dishes I never tried before. Stuff that looks fun to make, and to eat. I’ll admit, I mostly cook with my girlfriend, but I do know to cook stuff on my own. I’ll even say that I’m quite good at a couple of dishes. Chicken nuggets,… Read more: <span style="color: black;">9♣</span> – Make a croissant

A monkey’s fist is a type of knot that apparently looked like a monkey’s fist to someone. There are practical uses for it, such as using it as a weight on the end of a rope, mostly in the nautical world, and in the past, it was also used as a weapon or even as an anchor in rock climbing, by stuffing it into a crack. However, my use case, which is frequent these days, is ornamental. You can often… Read more: <span style="color: black;">10♣</span> – Make a monkey’s fist

Pop-ups are one of those magical things that we see as kids and can’t even understand how they work. And even though we understand them a little bit more as adults, there is still something magical about them. You can have whole worlds pop up into your face as you open up the pages. How can so much fit in so little space? Pop-ups are also very familiar to me. I made only a couple of them in the past,… Read more: <span style="color: black;">J♣</span> – Make a pop-up card

First of all, a buttonhole can’t really be bespoke because bespoke means “made to measure” so the only measure you can use is the size of the button. But, when you talk about bespoke tailoring, there is also the term “true bespoke” and that term includes sewing techniques used to make the garment. Handmade buttonholes are a part of true bespoke tailoring. The reason for making them by hand isn’t because they are pretentious or showing off or anything like… Read more: <span style="color: black;">Q♣</span> – Make a bespoke buttonhole

The interesting thing about challenges like this is that you get really aware of how time passes. I am now just over half of the challenge and that means that it’s already half of the year. Yes, let that sink in. We are already in the middle of 2021. I don’t know if it will ever stop surprising me how fast time passes. And it’s a little bit weird how I don’t have the feeling I already finished half of… Read more: <span style="color: black;">K♣</span> – Make a sleeved cable

Drawing is one of those things where people think you’re either talented for it or you’re not. If that were the case, I would definitely fall into the latter category. But, even though I believe there is talent, I believe in learning and practice even more. This week’s project is just a small-scale experiment. How much can I improve in drawing in a week? To be more precise, how much can I improve after an 11-hour drawing course. My starting… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">K♦</span> – Make a drawing

When I first thought of this challenge and started writing down ideas for projects, the third item on the list was to make a YouTube channel. My original plan was to make a YouTube channel so I can make a video about every project I make. But, I quickly realized that I don’t have that much free time and that I’m struggling to make just the projects themselves, let alone to make videos alongside them. So, what changed? Actually, nothing.… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">Q♦</span> – Make a YouTube video

I wanted to make a bomber jacket for a really long time, probably 2 years by now. So it predates this challenge by a lot, but it still ended up here. Thanks to that, I already had all the materials I needed. This idea started when my girlfriend bought me an exquisite fabric in a thrift shop for only $3. The first two ideas I had for it were pants and a bomber jacket (or a suit jacket, but I’m… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">J♦</span> – Make a bomber jacket

Professional teleprompters cost hundreds of dollars and up. (Even consumer ones) So obviously, I’m not going to spend that much money on it, especially because I’m not sure I even need it. Since the basic principle on which teleprompters are based is very simple, it’s not hard to make a DIY variant of it. The main thing you need is a piece of glass and something to hold it at a 45-degree angle to the camera. And somewhere to place… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">10♦</span> – Make a teleprompter

Okay, first of all, I know that coding projects are not fun to read about or look at. Especially when I put them on Facebook in a picture format. But, I wanted to make this, so here it is. In better news, there is only one more programming project on my list. And that is one of the best things about making. This week I saw yet another web portal clickbait title with the word “BRUTAL” in it. Serbian media… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">9♦</span> – Make a brutal web scraper

When you make a challenge that has to have the sameish title every week, sometimes you can’t exactly fit what you make in the format of the title. This week I managed somehow to make it fit. But it’s something people probably don’t think about when it comes to this stuff. Anyway, here comes arts and crafts week. I came up with this literally by googling “crafts ideas” and this one was one that was easy and simple and didn’t… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">8♦</span> – Make marbled mugs with nail polish

This has been a problem for me for a while now – not having a good headphone holder. Until now, my headphones would just lay on my PC case or on the chair or wherever would be the closest place to put them down. For some time I hung them on the back of the chair but that was peeling off the finish on the earmuffs. The holders I’ve tried were the stick-on kind and they would inevitably lose their… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">7♦</span> – Make a headphone holder

This one was a failure in time management. First of all, when you have epoxy resin which takes 24 hours to dry, you shouldn’t start working on the project on Saturday if you want it done by Sunday. And second, it took more than 24 hours, so I had to take these out of mould before they dried out completely so they didn’t end up well. It’s not the first time I started the project this late but this one… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">6♦</span> – Make artisan keycaps… or at least try to

3D printing is in a way so simple, but yet so magical. Not too long ago this was some crazy futuristic technology that people didn’t even believe at first. And it was expensive, really expensive. It is kinda unbelievable how much this technology improved in the last 10 years or so. For somebody who likes to make things, 3D printer is a well of endless possibilities. Everything that you wished to improve or make but didn’t know how or didn’t… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">5♦</span> – (Make?) Assemble a 3D printer

Nail and string artwork is another “art form” I have already tried out before this project as I find it fun and because I made it as a gift for someone. It just looks very cool and it involves a lot of subtle handiwork, which I am a big fan of, as I’ve already mentioned various times on this blog 😀 It’s basically all in the name – a board with nails attached to it, with strings forming a thick… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">4♦</span> – Make nail and string art

I would say woodworking is one of my great passions, but I feel I would need to be a part of that trade to be able to say that. I can say that I am passionate about wanting to do that. I’ve watched countless woodworking videos on YouTube and there is something there I find really satisfying. One of these days I might find words to describe the feelings I have when making things, or sometimes even watching them being… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">3♦</span> – Make a knife block

My original plan for this week actually failed because I didn’t organize well enough to get the necessary materials for it. So I had to pivot and figure out something else. Luckily, there is a thing that is on my list of ideas and it just happened I needed to learn a little about it for my job. The thing I’m talking about is obviously the thing from the title – 3D modeling. I have a little experience with 3D… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">2♦</span> – Make a 3D model

Leatherworking videos were always satisfying to watch for me, so naturally, I wanted to try leatherworking for myself. You need surprisingly little to try it out. If you want to do it seriously there are plenty of tools you can acquire, but for something basic, you could probably even do it with common household items. I did buy a couple of specific things on AliExpress, but the rest I had on hand or I borrowed. The tools I’ve used are:… Read more: <span style="color: #ed5750;">A♦</span> – Make leather cases

I’m not sure where I’ve first seen this but it was probably on YouTube on some of the tech channels I follow, or in one of the various rabbit holes I’ve been through over the years. It caught my attention because it seemed like it’s not too hard to do but it had impressive results. All you need is the glass etching cream and a template of what you want to etch. The toughest part was finding the etching cream… Read more: <span style="color:black">K♠</span> – Make a glass etching

Her name was Irene Sienna Espada Saavedra or Irene Espada as most people called her and she was the best bladesmith in Toledo. In the small, but a proud community of Toledo blacksmiths she was known as the Queen of Spades. She had a small unassuming shop. The kind you would miss if you didn’t know it’s there. And she liked that because it meant that only the people who are really interested in swords would come to her. She… Read more: <span style="color:black">Q♠</span> – Make (write) a story

First, I have to set a definition for what constitutes a game because I’m not sure that what I’ve made can be called a game. For this case, I will be satisfied to say that a game is something that has rules, game mechanics, and a goal to get to. That being said, this could be called a prototype or proof of concept for the game mechanic. When I started this project, I had higher hopes for the end result,… Read more: <span style="color:black">J♠</span> – Make a game

This week was my first crisis in this project. I say first because it probably won’t be the last. This was to be expected from a project like this which is both physically and mentally demanding. Also, from my experience with previous projects, I knew that sometimes you will feel low or won’t have motivation or time or all of the above. Something like that was this week for me. For the previous couple of weeks, I feel very tired… Read more: <span style="color:black">10♠</span> – Make a timelapse

I really love Japanese crafts. They often are so complex but also simple in a way. Japanese craftsmen often dedicate their lives to studying a craft and often that becomes a family business which is then studied and improved upon for generations. The project that I did this week is relatively simple compared to some other crafts I’ve seen. But even with that in mind, if this was done by true bookbinding craftsmen it could’ve been so much better. There… Read more: <span style="color:black">9♠</span> – Make a notebook using Japanese bookbinding technique

I present you the Muffin board. This is not the first keyboard I made, but the first one definitely took more than a week to make and it’s also not done yet so it couldn’t be a part of this project, When my friend and I were making our keyboards we, naturally, tried to convince everyone around us that they also need custom keyboards. My girlfriend, a bit jokingly said that the keyboard she would want would have only two… Read more: <span style="color:black">8♠</span> – Make a keyboard

This week’s project is sponsored by isolation and inability to get supplies for any other idea from my list, but also by some great friends who’ve sent me a care package which, among other things, contained a balloon animals kit. Balloon animals are really fun to make, you twist and turn balloons and manipulate them into the shapes you want. It’s actually kinda incredible how forgiving they are and how much torture they can handle. But that being said, this… Read more: <span style="color:black">7♠</span> – Make balloon animals

There is a dirty little secret in programming and it is called stackoverflow.com. What (non-programming) people don’t realize is that for a lot of things you don’t actually have to know to code or to know a specific programming language to actually make something in it. What helps is knowing some basic programming principles and programming logic and with that, you can just go to stackoverflow, find the solution for your problem and adjust it to fit your needs. More… Read more: <span style="color:black">6♠</span> – Make a Chrome extension

Blast from the past. I haven’t made one of these since elementary school. And you can see that people aren’t making them a lot these days because I barely found supplies for it. These silicone strands used to be everywhere but now I found only two packages in one shop. Making these lanyards was really popular in elementary school, and while it was mostly girls who were making them, that didn’t bother me very much, I just liked making them… Read more: <span style="color:black">5♠</span> – Make lanyards

I never know how to start these posts. Writing is not my strong suit. So here’s this. This week is going to be about sewing. It’s not something new for me, but I needed a keyboard case and I didn’t have much time for the project this week (again). Sewing can be very relaxing and zen, but not when you’re in a hurry. Even though I was in a hurry, I had moments where I enjoyed the work. Sewing in… Read more: <span style="color:black">4♠</span> – Make a keyboard case

I made a thing. It’s utterly useless but it technically does what I’ve set out to do. This is actually the most recent thing I’ve added to the list of stuff I want to do in this project but I chose it for this week because it’s relatively easy to do and it doesn’t take up too much time which was really important to me because I’ve moved this week and I’m still in the process of unpacking. The inspiration… Read more: <span style="color:black">3♠</span> – Make a wire coat hanger kinetic sculpture

Let’s start with the most obvious question – what’s with the name? Well, as expected, jackofalltrades domain wasn’t available so this was the next best thing. Furthermore, when I was working on this website, I realized that its acronym is G.O.A.T. which is also an acronym for “Greatest of all Time” and that is an acronym I don’t mind sharing. The next obvious question is – why make a blog? And there is a couple of reasons for that: Since… Read more: <span style="color:black">2♠</span> – Make the blog

Since the first week has only 3 days, I decided to do something easy. So I’m making a Facebook photo album in which I will keep track of the project. Alternatively, what I made is this photo which will be the “cover photo” for the challenge. I thought it would be funny and symbolic to have one of the trades in the photo too, which is magic tricks/cardistry. I don’t really do magic tricks anymore, but some stuff like this… Read more: <span style="color:black">A♠</span> – Make a Facebook photo album

…though oftentimes better than master of one. The ultimate one year challenge 2021 And so it begins. After two year-long projects, here comes the third. This one is actually a little bit intimidating because unlike the previous two, this one is not a photography challenge. The challenge this year will be to make something every week. It is not very specific because I want to try as many things as possible. At the beginning of the last year, I heard… Read more: Jack of all trades, master of none…