Fan-Created Space Sets - Space Skulls and Star Justice

Names of Sets: Star Justice and Space Skulls

Created by: Chris Giddens and Mark Sandlin, respectively, and now sold by the LEGO company.

Found at The Official LEGO Shop!LEGO Shop at Home

Details: Sorry that this post is going up so late - I simply ran out of time before the day's work got started. I don't expect that tomorrow's is going to be up any earlier, so I'm featuring two sets today just in case I don't get to one tomorrow. Anyway, these two kits each feature four models. They are the latest in a series of fan-designed models available through the LEGO company. Of course, the LDD software means anyone can design a set, but it gets to be substantially less expensive if the company actually manufactures the design instead of putting the parts into the box by hand (yes - LDD Factory orders are really done by hand - I've verified this with someone who's seen them do it). Of course, LEGO now takes the first few weeks that something is out so seriously that many sets are on clearance before many people have even heard of them - and these two sets are among those that are at bargain clearance prices even though they're still technically new and exciting (30% off, putting them at $70 each instead of $100 each, as of this writing). Both of these are exclusives (so you have to order them through Shop-at-Home or a LEGO store), but they're both pretty cool, too, in terms of parts. The basic premise for both of these is that they're supposed to go in a timeline somewhere between the "classic space" sets and the Launch Command-type sets. OK, I'm showing my age - "Space Port" or "Mars Mission" are probably what those would fall under now. These two fans had actually created enormous themes of their own with hundreds of ships, but they each only had four models chosen to appear in sets. For some more info on these, I highly recommend the reviews of these over at BrickJournal. The bottom of that article also has links to non-set models in both of these themes.