So here’s what I’ve ascertained so far after reading information and reviewing your comments, my plan is to:

• do a Windows 11 Pro install on a VM
• install all of the base custom apps; make changes to my brand of wallpaper; icons, etc
• Run sysprep, choose generalize, shutdown or reboot - this is where I get a little confused on what to do next… I want to create the golden image at this point on a usb drive, but use acronis or clonezilla here or use dism?

I heard that doing dism is better because it captures a better image sector by sector, than anything else?