@RobertT: Thank you so much! By the way, your entries are always absolutely stunning 
That’s exactly what I wanted to share 
I still have much to learn about modelling and lights. That rough mesh I call a plane was a real challenge to me. But the best way to learn is to practice, right? I’ve watched enough tutorials.
And I learned how to add a text mesh that doesn’t interact with the rest of the scene!
@Photox: Thank you for a very detailed and honest review! I agree on everything you said, like the hand being cartoonish (that’s one of the reasons I blurred it out…). And yes, the “ambiguous light” is another wall closer to the camera.
However I must say you raised an interesting topic: how much of the picture can be burrowed (not only asking Photox)?
I see the rule of thumb is that the main focus of the entry is supposed to be your own art, but’s still up to your own interpretation.
Take my entry for instance: say that I had burrowed the cave but painted the wall painting myself. Putting aside that it’s a quite lazy approach, would it count as my own work? One could argue the entire cave have to be your own, while another mean only the UFO have to be legit as it’s the focus of the work.
To make thing even more complicated: imagine that I had made the cave solely in Gimp (pieced pictures of actual caves together): it’s my work in the sence that I made it in Gimp, yet it’s not my pictures to start with (not to mention it’s not even made in blender).
So where’s the line?
If, by this question, you mean the line between what is considered an open entry as opposed to a pure entry, this is my meandering thought process:
To me, this competition is all about having fun and learning while sharing your progress and art with others. That being said, it is up to each artist to interpret what should be labeled pure and what should be labeled open. What I choose to call Open, others might label as pure and that is just fine. What others label as open I might choose to call pure and that, too, is fine. If an artist is having fun and competing within the spirit of this competition, then we all benefit.
If, however, by this question, you mean what can be labeled as “my own creation” and what is stealing from others, well, that debate has been raging since the first humans made cave paintings. What is the difference between inspiration and plagiarism? Can I look at a finished piece and say to myself “I made this.” or, do i think “I stole this”?
Here is link to an interesting video that I enjoyed called “Everything is a Remix”: https://vimeo.com/139094998
I found it to be very enlightening and entertaining.
Regarding the weekend challenge, I want to say that I appreciate everyone’s entry and conversation in the forums. It inspires me to continue to create.
Cheers!
@RobertT: Thank you for your nice observations, there’s a lot missing in what i’ve done (from many perspectives) so my entry was really unfinished, that should not be the case next time. 
@All: There’s a lot of talented people in this place, it will be a pleasure to learn from you all.
It was really tough for me to give only one vote.
The open category seems to have two branches: Using another software like gimp, old discovery (I would have called it discovery: the painting in the cave may be old, the discovery itself is new 
) seems to be 50% blender, 50% gimp.
My entry qualifies for the open category because of the trees. It would take me a few weeks to create a decent looking tree. This I think, encompasses the second branch of the open category, I almost see it as a lenient interpretation of the open entry qualifications. I think “all your base” is technically an open entry, I still voted for it, just because it’s so awesome
thanks Robert, I enjoy reading takes on my renders. I think V may have been an unconscious influence on my scene/ story I chose to tell.
That’s exactly the reaction I expected
I’m just a beginner. That ugly modelling of a biplane was a real challenge for me. But that’s how we learn, right? By trying.
I also learned to display a text mesh that does not interact with the rest of the scene :yes:
Which brings us to another question: Add-ons. What if the trees where generated with Sapling Tree Gen - which ships with blender? I mean - in a way it is part of the (standard) Blender package (like e.g. Cycles:eyebrowlift2:, BoltFactory, IvyGen, Cell Fracture, Crack It, …). Trees which make up a large/important part of the entry and came from a pre-made tree collection (like Xfrog plants) will make an entry open - but if they where created with sapling? Personally I’d lean towards pure.
And what about test releases, release candidates, nightly build bot builds, custom builds, early 2.8 builds, etc.
It is hard to give a general answer to this question. But I don’t think we will need courts and judges for this - guts will do:
1.) If it doesn’t feel pure, call it open.
2.) Being honest about the process and tools which lead to an entry is always a good, interesting and helpful thing.
And in the end, pure or open doesn’t really matter all that much. It is only relevant for the voting - and even there it is only secondary. The entry with the most votes always wins (the category doesn’t matter). Only if we have a tie the pure ones will be treated preferential.
It is getting late … Did I mention how much fun playing around with Crack It is?
Speaking of late - I’ll go start compiling a congratulatory message…
And… the winner of Weekend Challenge 739 with 24.44% of the votes is… DoriNori!
Here’s to all the great participators…
RayVelcoro : 0 : 0%
LeoBlenderToon : 0 : 0%
benla : 6 : 13.33%
FlyingBanana : 0 : 0%
3dnotguru : 6 : 13.33%
Evilos : 0 : 0%
Unicornaphobist : 0 : 0%
Photox : 4 : 8.89%
didierv : 0 : 0%
wolfel : 0 : 0%
Hiryuusan : 0 : 0%
DoriNori : 11 : 24.44%
appie.123 : 7 : 15.56%
texasfunk101 : 9 : 20%
david.speer : 0 : 0%
caz747 : 0 : 0%
astiero : 1 : 2.22%
fcharr : 0 : 0%
Miatpi : 1 : 2.22%
str11 : 0 : 0%
Spooky Cyborg Jellyfish-Like Spaceships Floating Through Deep Space Near a Moon With a Notably Blue Color Scheme With Some Purple in it As Well
@Helge: would you mind taking a look at my question above, about how much (or little) burrowing that’s allowed for a work to count as yours?
Congrats DoriNori!
Despite the pure/open category, I think one important thing is to mention the resources/methods we use in the making. For example, sometimes I see good entries but can hardly decide if, say, the texture or BG is self-made or ‘borrowed’ and the maker doesn’t mention anything. Like SonySee said, since this challenge is more about fun and learning (rather than hardcore competition between life and death), applying too strict rules might turn out to be too excessive. So, at least for me, some explanation about the making (especially if there are many external resources used) is enough to help me decide in the voting.
Anyway, congratulations for DoriNori!
Well, as you said, this can be complicated. And it heavily depends on what you mean when you say “your work”.
If it is about the difference between pure and open in the context of this challenge, the second half of my above post applies to that as well. Apart from that, in a way it is a matter of your personal standard, and, of course, there are the challenge rules (which leave a lot of space for interpretation):
[…]Where a scene has a recognizable distinction between foreground and background, a Pure entry requires almost all of the foreground models to be new. If you can honestly say to yourself, “Yes, nearly all of the foreground models are new”, then the entry is Pure - it doesn’t matter how much of the background is new or recycled.
Where a scene has no foreground/background distinction, a Pure entry requires mostly new models. If you can honestly say to yourself, “Yes, most of the models are new”, then the entry is Pure.[…]
Applied to your first example and if it was my entry:
As there is no strong distinction between foreground and background, using an old or borrowed cave object and just adding an additional texture layer painted in Gimp, this wouldn’t be something I’d call pure. => very open
Applied to your second example:
Even ignoring the legal issues, I wouldn’t enter a gimp image as a pure or open entry in a blender challenge. So => non competing 
Let me add a third example:
Take the cave from example 2, use it as a background and add a 3D-UFO which uses a laser beam in order to paint ‘prehistoric animals’ on the walls. I think this would qualify as a pure entry. (still ignoring any legal issues regarding the image/texture sources)
If this is a more general question this could easily turn into a never ending discussion about philosophy, physics, religion, laws, … and the question how to measure the threshold of originality. But I guess this is not what you had in mind.
Speaking of too late (again) - it really is too late now.
(2:20 in the morning)
At the end of each entry post in which we participate, we could write some lines about what we learned this time with Blender, so that we do not forget what really matters about the challenge 
About GIMP (or Krita, photoshop, etc). Obviously if you make a “GIMP art” almost without using Blender, it does not make sense to even participate in the challenge. But if you use it to paint a texture that you later include in your Blender model, that seems to me even better than taking textures made by others out there. Do not forget that within the Blender workflow, in Texture Paint mode for some reason we have there “External” item in panel (or Edit Externally in UV/image editor) :rolleyes:
Congratulations DoriNori!
Thanks!
Edit:
For painters … Grease Pencil is getting amazing features for Blender 2.8. So you will be able to paint (vector painting) your art and it will be “pure” entry! (I guess)
Congrats , DoriNori. Those spaceships of your reminded me of the attack robots in the last instalment of the Matrix film series, the ones that chase Neo and co through the tunnels.
Thanks, RoberT, for the always helpful comments. I’m glad the sense of a high speed chase was showing in the image, it was something I tried to bring to the fore.
On the whole pure versus open debate, if I spend 80-90% of my time working in Blender to create the image, regardless if I use plugins or not, then the image for me is pure. If it’s closer to a 50-50 between Gimp and Blender then I will go open. It’s a choice that’s given in the rules, on my reading of them anyway, and I will always be honest with myself on how the image was created.
Congrats , DoriNori!