Hey Smoke, since you posted this pic in the other thread where we were talking I wanted to come over to this one so as not to hijack the book thread.
This is an amazing tree, but I am at a loss to what kind of discussion me or someone as inexperienced at bonsai as me could have with you on it without asking a bunch of the basic questions that seem to annoy you.
Again You are missing my point and grouping things together that don't belong together. What annoys me is when someone that can't show me or the forum that they have the skills to do what I have shown here, wish to argue with me about those said skills. People don't wire trees, I have said hundreds of times that wire goes a long ways into turning a so so tree into a gorgeous tree. People don't bend branches, they put the wire on, and then never do anything with the branch. If your going to put the wire on, and the branch will not do the thing you wired it for, then its useless and you need to start over with a better tree or cut the big branches off and start with smaller branches. Either way, your not moving forward by putting on wire and not making significant changes in the material with the wire.
Answering questions does not annoy me...ever. People ask me about a tree like recently the pine, and I go out and take a picture and post it within at least an hour or sooner if I see it sooner. I don't know where you would get the idea that questions annoy me. Putting words into my mouth does annoy me. So.. this part of your post is annoying.
However, if you have the time and inclination can you talk a bit about the process you went through to come up with this final design? I know you have mentioned before about already having a vision for your trees from the day you acquire them - but i also saw that a branch broke that you weren't intending on losing. Do you have anymore pics of the tree as you trained it from the first pic to the final pic? How would it have come out if that branch had stayed in place? Edit - reading through this thread looks like you were going to layer the branch lost. Would you have still designed the rest of the tree similarly around that layer?
This part is more inquisitive.
This tree has been posted numerous times at this place. If you wish to see a better sequence I will post it tomorrow. As far as the branch. The branch has always bothered me. I turned the tree in the position it is in now about 6 years ago. Maybe more. Since then that branch has always been an eye poker. You could not see it because it stuck straight out. About 10 inches. Always pierced me in the chest when I picked the entire pot and tree up which weighs about 90 pounds. I have always wanted to layer the branch off, but just never did it. The tree was looking pretty haggard in my backyard, and with the patio done and me resting there more, I was tired of looking at it. I just wanted to make that tree look like something. Something different, and not just what I usually do. This tree now had the material to do that and was healthy and ready. To save time, I just cut (ouch) the damn branch off. I could not artistically do what I wanted to do with it on the tree, and I surly did not want a big package of moss on there for the next two or more years.
Is this tree done? Hardly! It grows so damn fast that if I do not keep up with it, it will look like it did last Saturday in about two years!!
It will be styled again I'm sure.
Me digging the tree in 2004. My first digital camera. A Fuji fine pix 4900