Born in Scotland, Vines' family moved to Singleton in 1949. After working briefly as a clerk, he was trained as a teacher in Papua New Guinea and worked at TPNG outstations in remote Morobe province from around 1964.

His career as a cartoonist began when PNG education authorities commissioned him to illustrate mathematics text books. He was also painting, with work exhibited at the New Waigani Theatre (with Faye Owens) in June 1974.

In November 1974, he began regularly contributing cartoons to the Papua New Guinea Post-Courier.

He returned to Australian following PNG independence in 1975 and joined the Brisbane Telegraph as political cartoonist. In 1988 when the Telegraph closed he moved to the Sunday Mail until the early nineties. His work was syndicated to regional newspapers in Queensland. He did a regular feature on TVQ Brisbane.

A number of books with his cartoons were published, including photo-cartoon books with Alan Moir.