The arthropod cuticle is a versatile multifunctional material that captivates the observer with its iridescent colors and mechanical resilience. Despite being made of a limited set of building blocks — primarily chitin, proteins, and water — the arthropod cuticle demonstrates a diverse range of material properties. Like in many other biological materials, this resourcefulness emerges from hierarchical architecture and intricate compositional gradients that arise through the assembly of the building blocks in a cellular-controlled environment. Here, we first introduce the structure and composition of the arthropod cuticle followed by a discussion about the cuticle deposition. Given that the major steps in this process are not well known, beyond providing a summary of the key observations, we put forward questions and speculate upon cuticle deposition and, in particular, the control of its ultrastructure with the hope of inspiring new ideas in the field. We expect that a better understanding of the biological material formation mechanisms can provide new ideas for bioinspired materials design and processing irrespective of the actual building blocks.