The more I think about this tree and it's shape, the more I think you need to be careful. This looks like really good material to me, and I think that you should get a lot of advice about the styling of this tree. I stick with what I said earlier BUT I think you must give a lot of thought to how you do the chop, and how you incorporate the deadwood into the design. The olive will probably never heal completely over the scar from that cut (correct me if I'm wrong here all), so some form of shari or uro would be good to think about and incorporate into the design. SO, what I recommend is that you take of the high growth completely for now to get extra energy into the new leader and then give it time until you find a design that really does the tree justice. Start by taking some more better quality photos from different angles, and post them on this thread for others to comment on. To really give you good help people here need to see more angles. Take about six photos at about 30 degree angles increments with the first big bend going around the back and then pointing off to the left. There is unlikely to be a good option with the bulge coming toward the front/viewer. Bang them up here and get more advice from others.
DON'T RUSH IT - the material is too good!
One thing I have not done, and neither have any others is tell you how to develop the crown. It's a very difficult thing to describe, and you'd do well to go and have a look at a few good trees to get a feel for it. It depends a lot on what crown effect you are after, but essentially as you get closer to the top of the tree, the branches get thinner, and the spacing between the foliage pads should decrease (if you have a padded design). Typically, but not always as it is very style dependant, the branches are angled down at the bottom, roughly horizontal as you move up the tree and then the thinner ones point more upward. The crown itself is essentially the final foliage pad, and is made up of the smallest primary and secondary branches. These typically start roughly horizontal and then as the crown gets closer to the top point of the trunk you get a kind of mini-broom style section to end it all off.
Here's my "artists" impression showing what I mean, with the crown being made up of the top 4 branches:
Cheers,
Andrew
Mark
