I was given the concept by a friend, who challenged me to put my own spin on it. Hence, a little more realism and a few obvious modifications. Some trouble I've run into is getting a consistent look to the bark and balancing the level of detail in the various elements of the model.
Awesome, thanks! There are so many bark images that it's hard to sort through them for what's good and what's useless. These will both help. Thanks again.
The leaves are an IMM brush I made. I pretty much did it all with Clay Buildup, Standard with alphas 58, 59,and 60, and Slash3. Lots of pushing and pulling.
I feel like the moss that you have and actually overall everything right now is a bit oversaturated. I really like the shape/silhouette you've got going in this pose and all the leaves though great start!
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Grab some interesting bark reference and pick out cool shapes.
Another cool sample: https://peterteabonsai.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/the-beast-25.jpg