Bricks by Kaleta

Found a great recipe for Ogwen Dragon Cake and just had to try it out. A traditional Danish recipe that dates bake to the early nineties, the fluffy green cake is paired in perfect complementary contrast with a rich red velvet frosting. Great British Bake off, here I come!

Kim - Keyboards, Flute, Vocals (2025)

One of seven LEGO builds created as gifts for my favorite band and dear friends in Los Campesinos!

Kim was my primary co-conspirator on this project and answered every question I had about gear. mannerisms, etc. I had so many good images of her setup from seeing them live that I was able to capture some really fun details. When I was looking at my pictures, I saw a small glass on the ground next to her keyboard and made sure to include it. When I presented the build to her she was thrilled to see that it was included as it is a shot of tequila she rewards herself with every night after singing her first proper LC! song, KMS.

In honor of these seven builds, I’m going to list my favorite song off of each of Los Campesinos!’s seven albums. The album that was on repeat while working on this project was their most recent, and first in seven years, All Hell, released July 19th, 2024. Having Kim’s vocals take center stage on KMS is a fun treat for longtime fans and hearing her and Gareth harmonize and trade verses makes this one a definite standout.

Matt - Bass Guitar (2025)

One of seven LEGO builds created as gifts for my favorite band and dear friends in Los Campesinos!

Matt joined the band in 2014 and thus did not receive an initial LEGO minifigure back in 2010. But he had fond recollections of his LEGO past when presented with his figure and was particularly pleased with his “rock” pose.

In honor of these seven builds, I’m going to list my favorite song off of each of Los Campesinos!’s seven albums. Matt joined the band in time for their sixth album, Sick Scenes, released on February 24th, 2017. LC! Album closers are always carefully chosen and something special and once again, Hung Empty delivers as a farewell to youth and entrance into a new phase of life for the members of LC! Were experiencing while recording in Portugal on break from their day jobs.

Slide 5 image credit Sonny Malhorta

Los Campesinos! At Thalia Hall (2025)

Los Campesinos! is either your favorite band, or a band you’ve not heard of - in my case it’s the former. I’ve been a fan since the early days and seen them live 13 times in three different cities over the years. On one such occurrence, I presented the band with minifigure versions of themselves. Fifteen years of friendship later I decided to create larger brick-built versions in the mainland plus scale in homage of their June 2024 performance at Thalia Hall.

Days after Brickworld 2024, I saw the band perform at Thalia Hall, which is one of my favorite live music venues in the city. From my seats on the wing, I had an excellent view of the stage and all the gear the band performed with. I had long wanted to build versions of the band in my signature scale, but was intimidated to try to get all the details just right. My view gave me the perfect opportunity to get photographs and do research.

The idea sat on hold until April of 2025 when I realized I didn’t have a build for the upcoming Brickworld convention - just two months away! I decided to tackle this long dreamed of project, but to add a degree of difficulty, I would make a second copy of each character to give to the band who would be in town performing at Metro in late May.

The crunch was on. I had the images, but I also had questions. Thanks to band members Tom, Gareth, and Kim for providing expert knowledge and answering questions about what was on stage so I could get everything just right.

I also realized that this build needed more than just the stage and decided to build the proscenium arch from Thalia Hall as well as incorporate lighting. The light kit used is from Briksmax, with a custom wooden box built by my wife. All the pictures were created totally in the lens of my SLR with no photoshop.

Stay tuned for images of the individual figures that were gifted to the band and behind the scenes shots of them with their figures!

57th Street Beach, Summer (2024)

The life guards arrive at 11:00am, but before that, the beach half a mile from our home is the perfect spot to keep an active Blue Heeler mix busy. This autobiographical build is a companion piece to a build from many years ago. The previous dog swam off the rocks at a spot about a mile north. The new dog loves to run in the sand and retrieve the throw toy from the water. She loves it so much that she cries and whines until the toy is thrown. An hour later, everyone has cooled off, the dog is exhausted and we’ve enjoyed one of the best parts of Chicago in the summer.

In addition to the motion functions, there were a couple of other fun things to try in this build. The transition of the wet sand to dry sand and the texture of the sand was fun to accomplish with just friction holding many of the plates in on a surface of bows underneath to create the gentle slope of the shoreline. The frame of the build also provides the opportunity to have a character “in” the water while still maintaining the motion of the waves. That character (me) is attached on only one plate! This spread the scene out a bid and gave each character room to breathe. The lifeguard tower was also a challenge, particularly with the bracket and SNOT elements available in dark tan, but I think it turned out nicely.