When did you put all that wire on? You really over did it.
Some suggestions: look at your lower trunk. It grows straight up for 2 or 3 inches, and then the curves begin. Your curves are nice, but it would look more natural if it emerged from the nebari at an angle to the ground.
Unless you are making radical bends on old wood, there's no need to use the raffia. Wiring is not a "do once and it's done" affair. You will wire, remove wire, wire again, remove wire many, many times over the life of this tree. So, typically we wire in the fall, leave the wire on over the winter and spring, then take the wire off early summer if the wire is beginning to cut in. If the wire is not cutting in, you can leave it. You'll know if it's cutting in if it look "flat" on the side next to the tree.
Did you use aluminum wire? For pines, copper is better. Annealed copper is soft when you put it on, but as you bend it (coil it around the branches) it stiffens up. So, it holds better. You can use LESS wire, and THINNER wire than aluminum. Plus, it "stays bent" better than aluminum.
The rafia is preventing back budding. The trick with pines is to keep green growth close to the trunk on the branches. Pines, left on their own, become "leggy", with all the needles at the end of the branches, and "hollow" inside. Our mission, as bonsai artists, is to force the tree to keep good healthy twigs and needles in the interior of the canopy. We cut back the growth on the outside to encourage the interior buds to grow. One of the things we rely on to aid in this effort is back budding. That is when sunlight penetrates into the interior of the tree and stimulates a dormant bud to grow. Covering the wood with raffia prevents this.
Look at your two primary branches. It would appear there is a distance of 2 or 3 inches between the trunk and where the first branching begins. On a tree that size, there should be two or three branches off the main branches on that bare space. Hopefully, once you remove the raffia, the sunlight might stimulate some back budding along there.
It's hard to see with all the wire and raffia, but I suspect that you really need some girth in the trunk. This can only be done by letting a branch or two grow unchecked for several years. Your tree is pretty sparce, you don't have any "extra" branches that you could let grow as sacrifice branches. It there is one, let it grow. Also, to this end, you need to encourage growth as much as you can. There's no need for needle pulling on this baby, it needs all the energy it can get.
Fertilizing. Please do. It's a common misconception that we keep bonsai small by withholding fertilizer. We stress our trees by keeping them in small pots and prune, wire, decandle, etc. They need all the food we can force in them. Please fertilize. Heavy. It will help build that trunk, too.
Now, please don't think I'm being overcritical. You obviously have a good eye! And kudos to you for trying a pine! Pines take years if not decades to develop, and this little tree is off to a good start.
Brian has a great PDF tutorial on his web site about training pines. check out
www.nebaribonsai.com and follow along as he shows how he developed a very nice pine over 3 or 4 seasons.
Good luck!
