Just as peteski wrote:
"soft wires tested together into trunck and branches and bent into those gnarly shapes. "
Don't try to twist the exact amount of branches/twigs.... only the "main"branches.
The twigs can be made out of static fibres 12 mm and some shorter ones.
The trick can be: when adding the 12 mm fibers use a hairblower to blow( gently!) these fibers by holding the tree upside down. So that the fibres are all pionting up....when dry/glue has sattled I mostly add some 4 mm fibres as a "base"for the "leaves.
Important: all these "steps" : less is more!
The picture I added is actualy the frame of a "windsweeped " tree on a mountain with wind coming mostly from one direction.
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May be in your case less fibres!
It is about 2 inches tall so it is a very very close up.
the frame is made out of 10 strands of 15 cm long wires of 0,3 mm. Covered with some layers of white glue with acrylpaint an over the final layer some (dust)sand
