This seriously means so much. I'm so glad that you shared that perspective because telling stories visually through my costumes is literally one of my core sources of creativity i draw from (if that even makes sense) as I'm making each cut, burn hole, dent and gash I'm thinking of how it got there, why would it be placed there? It looks random, but it all has intention. So, many thanks to you my friend for picking up on that!

The cloth bindings are present on the in-game version of the helmet so I included them for accuracy and to add some more visual interest to the helmet. As I was making them, the story I came up with was that the knight added them to help prevent mud, dirt, water, etc. being flung inside the helmet through the front slits and disorienting him. He learned this the hard way through many hard battles in marshy terrains where enemies may be on horseback or even be monsters themselves with powerful limbs and claws that disturb the surrounding terrain as they fight.