My inspiration came from knives I have in my collection and knives that really spoke to me aesthetically. I tend toward very neutral, plain shapes for handles and scales, which I think comes through clearly in the Nova. My favorite opening method is thumbstuds, so naturally I went with those when I was designing. As far as the blade shape and grind, those attributes were things I was really liking at the time in other knives. I draw designs in my notebook occasionally and I found that I kept coming back to the Japanese tanto blade shape with a harpoon and compound grind when I was designing something for the competition.