Robin Wood was born in November 1953, and apparently "teethed on Prismacolor pencils". She attended her first convention (a Detroit Triple Fanfair) in 1972, while a freshman at Michigan State University. She began doing art at conventions, leading to receiving her first professional commission in 1983 from Mayfair Games to design character cards for the Dragonriders of Pern board game. Then, in 1984, Robin met Anne McCaffrey and began discussions about how the Pern characters would/should look; this led to the publication of the book People of Pern, which was published in 1988.

Robin has also done numerous covers for Dragon magazine, as well as a number of book covers for Llewellyn Publications. In 1991 she published the Robin Wood Tarot, which has become one of the most popular tarot decks in the world. Other titles include The Robin Wood Tarot: The Book, When Why... If: An Ethics Workbook, and The Theory of Cat Gravity (with Diana Harlan Stein).

Robin was forced to take a hiatus from her artwork due to a diagnosis of fibromyalgia in 1995, which thankfully went into remission as of 2005. Remission has allowed her to go back to doing traditional art in addition to the digital art she began doing while fighting fibromyalgia.

Robin, in addition to her other artwork, now works on Second Life™ content creation, and offers tutorials to others via her website, RobinWood.com. Robin lives in Michigan with her husband, Michael.