Composite Images

COMPOSITES are the one type of forensic art that you are probably the most are familiar with. These are the drawings or computer images that you see in the newspaper with headlines like, ”composite sketch released in search of robbery suspect” or “suspect sketch released in area stabbing incident.”

Traditionally, a “composite sketch” meant that the image was hand-drawn by an artist with pencil and paper, and a “composite image” was assembled with a computer application. With the advances in software technology, those distinctions have become blurred. Now, artists can draw directly on a computer screen with a digital pencil, and computer operators can assemble sketch-like images without ever having taken an art course. Sometimes it’s difficult to determine exactly how a composite was created just by looking at it anymore, and in the end it really doesn’t matter. Whether it’s called a composite sketch, drawing, or image, the purpose is the same: to provide police with leads to the identity of the person depicted.

Most artists still use pencil and paper, which requires no small amount of talent, and training in the cognitive interview process. Generally the computer-based systems were created to serve agencies that did not have a forensic artist and therefore “no artistic skill is needed to create the image”…. which can have mixed results. But to be fair, not all of us artists hit the drawing out of the park every time either, so there you go.

Composite are not portraits, and given the circumstances under which they’re produced, there’s no possible way they could be. And they certainly aren’t representative of how a forensic artist can draw when they’re off the clock.

We aren’t drawing what’s in front of us. That’s a piece of cake. Instead, what we’re doing is drawing what another person saw, when they were likely in the midst of one of the most terrifying moments of their life: being the victim or witness to a crime. Our job is to pull the memory of the face of their attacker out of their mind, and put it down on paper.

Every line we draw, every stroke we make on the paper is subject to being changed by the witness, at any point during the drawing session to make it look like the image in their head. For a forensic artist, an eraser is used every bit as much as the pencil. And that means the drawing isn’t going to look exactly the way we want it to.

This brings out another point about being a forensic artist. There’s no room for ego in this line of work. We know our skills, and we know we can draw pretty pictures of pretty people. But when the witness describes a person with buggy eyes, giraffe-like neck, and their hair in pigtails, then that’s exactly what we’re going to draw. It’s not quite fair if that sketch ends up on “Tosh.0”, but it’s what we have to accept as part of the job.

A composite drawing is more of a technical illustration as opposed to fine art; it’s a visual statement of what another person saw, or more accurately, what they perceived seeing. Because we are working from someone’s memory, it’s going to be nearly impossible to get a perfect likeness, even if that person were describing their own mother. Under the best of circumstances, it’s more likely that we are going to get a general resemblance to the suspect, something that looks close to what that person looked like.

And just like horseshoes and hand grenades, “close” counts in a composite drawing. A composite has done its job if it figuratively taps someone on the shoulder and says “you might need to pay attention to this.” It’s enough if someone watching the news about last night’s shooting thinks, “that looks an awful lot like Carl and he acted pretty jumpy when I asked him why it took so long to come back from the dry-cleaners.”

And of course, the drawing has really done its job if that person picks up the phone and calls the number on the TV.

When should a composite drawing be done?