How Dinomike Accidentally Inspired My Kid
One of the first pieces of Dinomike art my daughter ever tried to recreate was an adorable, smiling unicorn standing triumphantly on a pile of skulls*.
I’d bought the sticker to support one of the artists I was working with, Dinomike, and gave it to her as a little surprise. She was eight. Crayons, chaos, and unicorn stickers were her whole brand. But this one hit different. She stared at it, grabbed a pencil, and got to work.
And for years, she focused on creating art, exploring her own offbeat little style and learning something about herself. All from joy sparked by one of Dinomike’s designs. Art is still part of her world today. It’s a skill she uses in her career and a quiet kind of confidence she carries with her, knowing she can make something from nothing.
Enter Dinomike
That sticker, and the many gloriously hilarious, sarcastic, spooky-cute things that followed, came from the delightfully unhinged brain of UK illustrator Michael Buxton, better known as Dinomike.
Michael’s work is the visual equivalent of watching Scooby-Doo reruns while the world ends outside, like a haunted cereal box designed by your punniest bestie. Cats. Skeletons. Cats who are skeletons. Limited color palettes. A haunted cereal-box vibe. His humor leans bleak, but somehow still wraps you in a warm, nostalgic hug.
“I always seem to swing back around to spooky, weird and cute,” he says. “A lot of the time my humor makes fun of how terrible things are.”
Same. Also, fun fact – Dinomike’s recced some of my favorite horror movies.
Spooky-Cute by Accident
He never set out to build a spooky-cute empire, it just kind of evolved from what he loved drawing most. He’s drawn to limited colors, worn-down textures, and that retro charm from the ’60s to the ’80s. Too polished? Not his thing.
His favorite piece, What a Time To Be Alive (above), was created in 2018 and accidentally became a pandemic-era classic. Existential dread, it turns out, is evergreen.
You’ll find skeletons and mischievous cats all over his work, sometimes both at once. These days he balances book projects with his own shop. He usually starts late morning and works into the evening and somehow keeps his studio delightfully weird.
On one side, a full-scale King Kong stop-motion armature. On the other, a Jason Voorhees mask signed by Kane Hodder. Somewhere between a creative workspace and a haunted museum gift shop.
The Art Is Real. The Theft Is Too.
He sketches, even when there’s no deadline, just to keep the gears turning. “You never know where your brain might lead you,” he says.
But when you’ve built a recognizable body of work, you also become a target. And Dinomike’s art has been stolen more times than he can count.
At first, it was almost flattering. Cool, I’m counterfeit-worthy now. That novelty wears off fast. Especially when your designs end up on knockoff merch you never approved, sold by companies you’ve never heard of.
How We Got Involved
Enter Edwin James IP.
Fellow artist Tobias Fonseca made the intro, and Michael jumped on a call with the Edwin James IP team. “It seemed like an absolute no-brainer,” he said.
After years of filing DMCAs into the void, he was ready for something that actually worked. And it did.
“It takes a lot to surprise me these days,” he told us, “but I was very happily surprised. There’s now an alternative to endlessly sending out DMCAs. And it actually works.”
We didn’t just take the stolen stuff down. We got him paid. Like it should be.
What He Wants Other Artists to Know
If there’s one thing Michael wants other artists to know, it’s that you don’t have to do this alone. You can protect your work, recover stolen income, and most importantly, you can actually win.
“There’s now an alternative to endlessly sending out DMCAs,” he says. “And it actually works.”
These days, he filters out the internet trolls with Instagram settings, but the chaos still shows up sometimes. Like the person who misunderstood a quote in his design, asked about it, and then got irrationally mad when he explained it. Block. Move on. Case closed.
Art for the Weirdos (aka, Us)
Michael says his art is for people who like awful puns and not-so-awful art. Which, if we’re honest, describes half the internet and most of our team.
And if he could yell one thing from the rooftop right now?
“Keep creating stuff. Especially in the face of a tidal wave of terrible AI-generated art.”
Also, he’d like to note that no one has ever offered him $100 million for the rights to his work. And honestly, that’s a little rude. We completely agree.
Still Inspiring the Next Generation
It’s been an honor working with Michael all these years and an even bigger one helping to protect the kind of art that lights a spark in little creators with big imaginations and grown-up creatives alike.
Because artists like Dinomike don’t just make cool designs. They make art that lets us express our feelings with a potty-mouthed lemon on a tee or an unassuming cat giving us the ol’ razzle dazzle (yep, that’s one of his too). Proof that even one unapologetically quirky unicorn can change everything.
Follow Dinomike’s latest spooky-cute creations on Instagram @dinomike_design.
*Killer Unicorn. Want to see the design that sparked an 8-year-old’s love of art? Take a look here.
Want to protect your work like Dinomike did?
👉 Get support at edwinjamesip.com