After basic mouth, ear, and eye setting we sewed the cape up on the top of the head. As it tightened up we had to tuck the glue, epoxy, and other materials under the cape and sew a little more. Tuck and sew, tuck and sew, and finally epoxy the last bit and finish the stitch. There was a special 2 part clay epoxy up around the antlers I forgot to mention, it was important to get it tucked in nicely. Then the stitching down the back took place and he showed me how to stitch so you'd never see or feel the stitchings. This isn't a big deal to most people but Brian was pretty anal about his work. As I stated before, he'd rather do 30 master work mounts over 100 good mounts. He doesn't do this for a living, he does it for a fun hobby and like any hobby he doesn't halfassed it. Once all the stitching was done we combed and smoothed stuff out. If there was a glue pocket we hand smoothed it around. If there was an air pocket we used a syringe to suck it out, while at the same time pushing excess glue into that area. It was pretty neat at this point because the mount all of a sudden "popped".
The saran wrap in the nose is to help hold the nose membranes in place while it dries. Brian said that the glue takes awhile to set up and this is where a lot of guys mess their mounts up. He likes to get everything in basic and then tweek stuff day to day as the glue sets up and starts to hold. We pushed some folds into the shoulder at this point as well, which makes me happy as I really like that aspect.
Anyway, start to finish was about 3 hours, but a hour of that was him babbling to me and me babbling back. There's a lot of work to be done yet and I'll try to keep this thread updated. It's sad to say, but I have finished mounts that don't look as good as this one does after 3 hours.
