I think the transformation is excellent. Does it look like the masterpiece tree that was its inspiration? Maybe-----so what? It seems today that no matter which direction you go with a tree there are those that will object to it on a host of reasons.
You can do it by the numbers and be accused of what you are identifying as a "cookie Cutter bonsai". You can style it like a masterpiece tree as an inspiration from a similar piece of material and be accused of copying a master piece tree. You can do just any old thing but making certain you do not follow any of the patterns of the cookie cutter, or the master piece then find yourself in the position of having to defend the butchery of a wonderful piece of raw material.
Sometimes you just have to do what you think is the right thing to do calling on all of your experience and knowledge to make a good bonsai. If it looks like a cookie cutter or a masterpiece what is so wrong with that?
The cookie cutter is nothing more than the realization of what has worked for centuries, and the masterpiece is----well the masterpiece. If you in your vision see either or and you have the ability to make it so, don't you think you would be denying not only yourself but the art as well, if you settled for something else just because it was something else, especially if that something else looked like something the cat hacked up? Have you done justice to a fine piece of material, have you done justice to your self and have to made a positive contribution to the world of bonsai?
It is my opinion (for what that's worth) is to style the material at hand in a way that pleases you, and as Walter says, touches your soul. When you start considering choices for design and you rule out an option because it looks like this, or it looks like that, even though those options were the best you could see, have you advanced bonsai or just caved in to those who are critical of a traditional approach? This is what I am starting to think of as the Monty Python school of bonsai: And now for something completely different. Freud came to the conclusion that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
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