Self-critique: Juniperus Procumbens 'Nana'

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Okay.
@Wires_Guy_wires doesn't have the right hands, so it cannot be done in a couple of hours. We can imagine that it might be, but it won't be. Unlike Sergio, I have no intrinsic artistic talent. I only have my tastes to know what I like when I see it and what I don't. I barely have a clue about just what makes the difference. With material like this, I continue to flail and it is coming down to apparently continuing to do the same thing and expecting different results, but I'm 'doing the work'. I'm sure that Guy will continue to 'do the work'. The question is whether any of us will ever have the right hands, Will we ever have what it takes to get it there? For me (and I think Guy) it is an artistic, not technical (how trees work), challenge. IMHO,

If I may barrow from Kurt Vonnegut, so it goes.

I have blind spots and I'm very willing to admit that. I might not be a bonsai artist after all, I'm not sure. I've been doing this for little less than a year now, just trying to avoid mistakes. But I've been in art school for 3 years and spent another 3 years as a tattooist.
As I've said before in some of sorce's threads: I'm at a constant battle between the scientist in me, preferring theory over practice and the artist in me that prefers to 'just do'. The sit patiently versus the direct overhaul. The artist inside me has calmed down after my young-adult escapades. Bonsai vamped it right back up. I'm in the process of finding that balance again. Many people advise beginners to take it easy. Just keep it alive for now. I might be a general plant biology expert, but in a practical sense this is the first time in 2 years I'm keeping everything alive.. Well, most things.. I went into bonsai a few years back, thinking I'd manage that. But I didn't, even with literature in one hand and an entire R&D team in the other. But the artist went crazy, overboard, it killed everything it got its hands on.
On a canvas or piece of paper, I can go all out. Just take another! But with trees, I've noticed it to be different. It's hard to start from scratch again. And when you do, the piece of paper is different than the one before.
Maybe it's a work reflex, as some of you know I work with agricultural breeding material. I can be finicky about losing material.

It doesn't have to be a pretty tree tomorrow. It doesn't have to be a pretty tree this year even. I'll get the hang of it.

My initial plan for this tree, is to shape it somewhat like below. Nothing extreme, nothing out of the ordinary. Just a plain ol' bonsai.
Of course, in real life I'd make it a bit more 3D.


EDIT: Maybe even drop the apex a branch lower. Or two.

 

[Sansui]

I had purchased a very similar tree and paid way too much for it ($7.00). I chose to compress the main trunk because the branches were all over the place and much of the foliage at the extremes. So after a few years it is almost looking 'bonsai like', and if I'm lucky, I might get $9.00 for it. The branches are still all over the place and that is where they will stay!

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

This one could use some more wire.
But the pads are developing nicely. It's never going to be a show level tree, but it's progessing in the right direction.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

Before wiring.

I might wire it this week, I might not.