Every piece starts with the same question: does the cape or hide actually support the mount being asked for? Field care matters more than anything that happens in the studio afterward - a nick, a slipped patch of fur, or too much time before salting can end a shoulder mount before it begins.
When the damage is too far along, the honest answer is to say so rather than force a mount that will not hold. A European skull mount or a rug can often carry a cape that a shoulder mount cannot, and that alternative is always offered before any work begins - not after the cost has already been spent.
What follows is tanning, fitting the hide to a form sized to the actual animal, sculpting the details the form alone does not carry - eyelids, nostrils, the muscle beneath a shoulder - and a final paint pass matched to reference photos, not memory.
