I met Gideon at FWA '09 and, given his aptitude with horses and muscular characters, he was the perfect choice to draw Mikaou.
Lately I've been working on redesigning Mikaou's appearance. In the first pic I drew of him years ago, he was too thin and rather undeveloped at that point. He has since developed on his own, but I've yet to capture that in my pic attempts for him. Thanks to Gideon, he came out perfectly. I also took the opportunity to introduce some distinctive new features in the young equine's design. For one, you'll notice he's wearing a kilt in his pic. Yep, Mikaou has ancestry in the Raikonian equivalent of Scotland. Even his voice now sounds like a hybrid of Scottish and American English, complete with a few key mannerisms. Though it doesn't show in this pic, I've also been streamlining his sword (which now has a name: Rhiannon), which I hope to show someday soon. It was rather interesting how this new design came to be; his friendship with Mai Tao seems almost like an "east meets west" type of pairing.

Artwork by  gideon
Mikaou copyright Aelius (me)