Born in 1961 and raised in Muskogee, Oklahoma, Mike Wimmer has been sketching and painting since age 6. His stepfather brought home paper and cardboard from his job at a box factory for him to draw on while his mother, then a college student and later a teacher at Mike’s middle school, introduced him to the world of books. Wimmer was deeply impressed with the classic adventure stories such as Treasure Island, especially those with the illustrations of such greats as N.C.Wyeth and Harvard Pyle.

Excelling both academically and athletically in high school, he began to take his artistic aspirations seriously as his graduation approached. He turned down his mother's offer to pay his college tuition if he would work on a degree in a "practical field" such as law or medicine.  Instead, Wimmer followed his grandfather's advice, that if he did what he loved he would excel and he would be richly compensated for it as well.

Accordingly, he paid his own way when he started a bachelor of art program at the University of Oklahoma in 1979. Two years of the program were at the Sketchpad Studio in Arlington, Texas on a commercial arts apprenticeship.  His graduation in 1984 was made even sweeter by the fact that his own design was used on the diploma he and his fellow graduates received.

His first freelance assignments barely paid his and his new wife's bills. But, gradually through hard work (completing upwards of 150 paintings a year), he established himself as a respected commercial artist.

Wimmer currently lives in Norman, Oklahoma, with his wife and their two children.