Japanese Black Pine restyle

[Hackimoto]

Here is the first of a few revamps to be done in the next few months, now that the weather is more conducive. The problem was what to do with such a longish, thin trunk. My solution was a semi literati style, the jinning may have to be reduced for good balance and keep in mind that the bottom right branches are being grown as future twisted jins and to thicken the trunk somewhat, but not too much.

[kcpoole]

Quite difficult to make something of the original I agree.

Like the result tho but I think the remaining branch is a but long and too horizontal, have you thought about dropping it down?

Ken

[jarrod23]

Love what you have done with it Hack! Doesnt look like it was the easiest material to start wif either.

[Hackimoto]

Thanks Ken, of course the remaining branch would look better dropped lower than the horizontal, but it is an ongoing process that I think that I will have to do a little more gradually at this stage.

Thanks Jarrod for your comments, as other people can see things in ones material that one sometimes doesn't see for themselves, all comments are appreciated.

[kcpoole]

Ken

[FEX]

nice work Hackimoto, i like the middle picture best, lower branch looks fine to me

[Barry1]

The length of the jin does seem too long to me but the rest of the styling looks to be headed in the right direction

[Andrew F]

Wow Hacki that looks great, Very natural response to some damage from a fallen boulder or cyclonic winds.

[Hackimoto]

Thank everyone for the comments. To my way of thinking I don't like the fact that the foliage is about half way up the length of the tree. Half is not good in my eyes. I would prefer it to be ideally one third from the top or one third from the bottom. Just for aesthetic or visual reasons. I also like the angle of the middle pic as the jin comes over the foliage and looks more balanced. In the next couple of years I will work on building the apex a bit higher, but no wider, the jin will then frame the foliage, also thickening and growing some more short jins to the right of the foliage pad and putting a shari down the left side of the trunk. Not too much trauma at once, I'll let it recover from this first.

[GavinG]

This might be a bit left-of-field, but have you thought of raising the right-hand (only) branch into the space to the right of the jinn? Branchlets can then be brought down/out again if you want. It would bring the foliage mass back up into the upper third where you want it, and keep the long sinuous jinn, but give it something to talk to.

Please keep posting the tree as you keep thinking. It's good to watch the process of resolving the tricky bits.

Gavin

[Hackimoto]

Gavin, Good thought, but I feel that I would rather build up the height of the tree from the apex of the living part. In my view to bring the left branch up to fill the void is not the trunkline that I envisaged as easy on the eye, as it might look a bit parallel to the top jin. I will keep that as a possible option if I can't achieve what I want the other way. Thanks for the input.

[anttal63]

Any change is a good change !!! Couragious Hack i like your style! Sure it could have made a dainty tall skinny liter, However this is the path you have chosen and now you just gotta fine tune it. You get a hole drilled into the armpit of that branch and take out some heart wood from that area, wrap it up, wire close in for support, guy wire up close too. Keep push and pulling it down a little, tightening up the guy, every couple of hours, that baby will come down within a 24 hr span. Once you get the desired angle and seperate the foliage into pads largest on the bottom this tree will be HUMMIN !!! heres a rough virt of the feeling im getting at.

[kcpoole]

I like your virt Ant, but would only have the 2 foliage pads, I think the lower extension you have is 1 to many for my taste.

Ken

[anttal63]

I like your virt Ant, but would only have the 2 foliage pads, I think the lower extension you have is 1 to many for my taste.

Ken

I too felt that once in blown up. Thanks Ken ya right on!

[Hackimoto]

Thanks Tony and Ken, this is what the forum is all about. You guys and anyone else using the forum have an unfair advantage in that all this information is at your fingertips. In earlier days we had to wait for rare classes to come up or seek out the very few books that were available at the time. Luckily the Yuji Yoshimura and John Naka books were around and became our bibles.
I love the virt and agree with you that the lower foliage pad is not necessary and is better in design without it. I'll see as I go with this one as it has been through a lot in the last couple of weeks and don't want to do any more drastic procedures just yet I'll give it a few weeks . I'll have to get my head around doing virts properly as it is a great tool for visualising a plan. Thanks again guys for your interest and constructive thoughts.