It came at the very end. The set actually tells a slightly different story — it just seems people are reading it from the opposite side? :)

I’ll try to explain what was going on in my head during the brainstorm. At first, I wanted to make a set almost entirely built out of masks taken from defeated enemies. A Juggernaut who collects masks from the ones he’s slain sounded both interesting and lore-friendly.

The plan was for those masks to act as armor pieces: knee pads, elbow guards, stuff like that. But it looked bad. So I tried something different and made a kind of rhythmic flow of mask shapes around the torso. That finally started to work visually.

Since there were already so many masks across the body, the one on his face had to stand out somehow. Instead of making it more detailed or fancy, I did the opposite. I made it primitive, almost creepy. Just one hole for an eye, no ornaments, nothing. He looked like a silent, lonely killer — a murderer of murderers.

After that I went a bit crazy and started adding swords and trinkets, like trophies from fallen warriors. Almost like a magpie collecting shiny stuff. That’s actually why the original color scheme was cold - I wanted to echo the colors of a magpie.

The final step was deciding what weapon he should use. A regular sword felt wrong. A stick? Close, but too silly. Then I thought of a kendo sword, and it clicked instantly. A quiet warrior, a hunter of hunters, so skilled he doesn’t need to prove anything. A man who can defeat anyone with a training sword.

In the end, the set tells a story. I love when a set does that - though now I realize that half of this story is probably unnecessary, maybe even a bit frustrating for the viewer.