Small mugo pine first styling

I was at the old Home Depot the other day and I had to stop and look at the garden center. I purchased 2 small mugo pines for $7 each. Here is the first one after its initial styling. I'll have to work on the other one later today. Any comments or suggestions on this one would be greatly appreciated.

Well, there is nothing you can do about this one, but in the future look for trees with a lot more branches. You may be able to encourage back-budding, but it will be hit-or-miss. Perhaps more important, those two lower branches are too thick. The usual rule is that the thickness of a branch should not be more than a quarter or third of the thickness of the trunk at that height. That is at least to begin with. On some trees, like my crabapple, the branches eventually become disproportionately thick, & there isn't much you can do, but by that time the tree looks old, so it is not jarring.
Also, do not wire the branches sticking straight out. Angle them down & curve them toward you like arms.
It looks as though you wired two branches together. Please separate them.
This will be good to practice your pine techniques on, like candling.
Iris

That looks better than my "poodle" mugo pine! It actually looks like a tree! I never thought about wiring branches together. Is that so you will have more twigs to choose from?

They're not actually "wired together". One is in front of the other...unless that's what you two are talking about.

I'm not so sure I'm a fan of the jin.

The jin is gone already.

Here it is after moving a few branches a little bit.

And a view from above.

I forgot to add this one is about 9 inches tall by 10 inches wide.

I think your original pic confused us as it appeared that the tree had a few very thick branches all over the tree. But I think what I'm seeing in these later photos is thinner branches - and of course more of them. That makes a difference.

As Iris pointed out, this is not going to be a show stopper but it is a good way to practise. I'd bend those branches down (slight movement back upwards at the tips) and I think you'll find the appearance changes considerably.

For all it cost, you have nothing to lose by experimenting a bit. As a start, try to push some growth back towards the trunk - your first pic showed some indications of that already starting to happen. Takes time but gives you more options.

Good luck.