Opinion and Help for new Juniperus Chinensis Pre-Bonsai

[BeneficialCucumber]

Hello everyone! I'm new to Bonsai and I need help with my first Pre-Bonsai, I've only been shaping 2 year old trees until now. The tree is a 20cm (about 7.8 inches) 17 year old Juniperus Chinensis.
I know the bonsai styling choices are very personal, so I'd like to ask what the first thing that comes to mind when you see the tree is.
Would you already consider leaving it the size it is and training it for a bonsai pot? My second thought was slip potting it into a larger pot, so as not to disturb the plant too much and encourage some further growth.
There are some issues with the branching that I marked in the pictures: there is a pretty big one growing on the inside of a curve and the branch I would call the main one grows completely vertical. I was planning on wrapping it with raffia and trying a more radical bend.
The foliage is a bit bushy and the tree doesn't have much of a shape as is. Would you consider pruning some of the growth before wiring, and if so, which? It'd be great if you could point that out on the pictures.
My main goal at the moment would be beginning to get a general silhouette for the tree and pads and refining it, so the bonsai pot is not a must at the moment. I am just having trouble defining the shape and taking decisions.
Please excuse my sloppy wiring, it was too thin anyways so I'll have to rewire. I tried to include pictures from every angle. If you need any more specificpictures or further information just ask!
I unfortunately don't have access to any bonsai club or garden nearby.

 

[sorce]

Welcome to Crazy!

I wouldn't call that branch "inside a curve". Be careful you're not blindly following "rules".

I wouldn't worry much about those branches unless you can get the top down in a fashion well enough to marry with those branches into the rest of the canopy.

If not you can cut em off and just let the nice trunk movement guide the eye all the way up.

Sucks you don't have anyone close, cause this is material with about 1 million possibilities.

Changing the angle of the trunk exit alone can give you about 85 fully different options.

I'd explore every angle and branching possibility before making cuts.

You will probably be able to make those first branches look better or worse with angle change. Though I feel this angle was chosen because it is the easiest to utilize the low branches with.

Bloody Nice .

Sorce

 

[JesusFreak]

Try changing the angle the pot is sitting at too. This would allow you to see different ideas. I do see a pretty gnarly cascade in there when I turn my phone slightly.

 

[Forsoothe!]

If photo #7 was the front, then it may be a simple design of a spiral staircase starting at lower right and continuing to climb up and left. I would have moved that inner branch to a position inside the curve (where I see it's origin) and form it to mimic the the main branch as a little brother that has the same curve and slightly lower or higher than big brother as a parallel branch. Any place that has tertiary branches in that upper clump of foliage should be wired and laid flat (horizontal) as its own cloud in the spiral staircase. We make space between clouds. All the clouds are alike in that they are all grown in the same conditions and subject to the same forces so that if they are wind-blown, they are all blown in the same direction to a greater or lesser degree. The tops all have similar crowns and thicknesses. The secondary branches all project from the trunk at about the same angle or in the same plane, except that, as they rise in the tree they change from drooping slightly down at the bottom of the staircase to more horizontal in the middle and slightly upward in the top third, all with a gradual change in slope/plane, step-by-step. Branches close to the top are more vertical and the peak is the most plumb.

With those in place you make space between the clouds by assigning each layer some airspace and not allowing any foliage from one layer to protrude into the airspace of its neighbors. No foliage may grow straight up and touch the layer above and no foliage may grow down from a branch and interfere with the airspace of the cloud below it. The clouds, remember, are wired into the stair-steps so that each is shifted 30° or 60° so, so that none are directly other the previous step. Most of the "airspace" you make will be from cleaning the surplus foliage from the bottoms of the clouds. Twigs have foliage growing their full length. Thrunks and branches have no foliage from their origin out some distance so the crotch (their origin) is bare and you can see the wood. The larger the branch, the further out the foliage starts. Foliage grows up and sideways from branches so you can look up and see the architecture of the clouds.

Wiring all the branches before moving any into some "finished" position makes it easier to do the final design positions of the branches because they all need to be in relation to each other and you won't know your options until they are all wired into cohesive, distinct clusters. You can't really tell if you have a student body right or a student body left, or up, or down until you see the contrary branches, often very minor in themselves, but being the fly in the ointment that won't move in sync with your plan. Do the preliminaries, and then decide.