As great as The CW’s superhero drama series Arrow has been, some fans have been wondering why Oliver Queen (Stephen Amell) continues to stick with the eye shadow instead of an actual mask. Well, things are about to change as the DC hero will be donning a more practical bit of concealing costumery. While it seems simple and straightforward, a lot of thought was put into the mask. It’s not just about the look – even though they went through 50-some options to find the right one – since the mask has more to do with Oliver’s transformation from vigilante to hero. Hit the jump to check out the new masked man.

The first look at the new mask in Arrow comes courtesy of EW.

Executive producer Andrew Kreisberg talked about the decision to bring the mask in now:

”Conceptually, it was something we wanted to do because Oliver himself is evolving as the Arrow– from vigilante to hero, sort of from Arrow to Green Arrow — and we wanted to see that progression in his costume as well. As Oliver is embracing being a hero, being a hero means stepping out of the dark and being more of a symbol, so he has to take steps to conceal his identity more.”

He further commented on why now is the right time for the mask:

”For all of the work that went into creating his mask, those are all the reasons we didn’t do it when we did the pilot, and also, sometimes, people have this knee-jerk reaction to seeing somebody in a mask. ‘Oh, that’s silly.’ But I think that now that people see how serious the show is and how grounded it is, the mask is going to feel like a natural evolution.”

Head over to EW for more on the method behind the mask, and be sure to keep up with our episode recaps here.