Facial Approximation

FACIAL APPROXIMATIONS are drawings and sculptures created from an unidentified human skull. These are the coldest of all cold cases. By the time a skull makes it to a forensic artist, all other means of identification have been exhausted. Years, or even decades, have passed. This is why a facial approximation can literally be the last chance that person has to be identified. Which means it can also be the last chance for that person’s killer to be identified. Remember, the investigator can’t begin to find out who the murderer is until they know the name of the victim. 3D facial approximations are generally sculpted in clay over a replica of the skull. Years ago the artist would have applied clay over the actual skull, but now we have technology at our disposal that allows us to use an exact physical copy instead. This is the best possible option, because we’re preserving the skull as evidence. The last thing we want to do is accidentally crush a fragile bone with the pressure of sculpting. Computer modeling systems exist too, but they’ve misled people into thinking that a computer is automatically generating the face. Actually, it’s all still 100% artist driven. The forensic artist works with virtual clay to sculpt the face in the computer, using a hand-held stylus that literally stops in mid-air when it hits virtual “bone.” Only a handful of artists have access to something like this because it’s exceedingly expensive, and frankly, no more effective than doing them with clay. It offers other advantages, as you’ll see, but essentially it’s a different approach to get to the same result.