Q: I am interested in a career doing facial reconstruction. It seems that all the jobs go to those in law enforcement. I really want to help victims and families, so where do I start?
A: Here’s the short version. I had thought I might need to expand on this at a later date, but I think it pretty well sums up the situation:
1) Possess art talent: If you don’t have any innate skill in drawing and sculpting, then you will be at a severe disadvantage. Don’t spend your money taking a forensic art or facial reconstruction class… yet.
2) Research to see how many unidentified victims (UIDs) are in your city/state: A couple sites to check out are www.doenetwork.org and www.identifyus.org. If there aren’t many, there is likely not much need for your services (so you may have to move if really want to pursue this). But if there are:
3) Become employed by a law enforcement (LE) agency or medical examiner’s (ME) office in some capacity.
This is because a skull is evidence, and part of a LE investigation, and they will NOT hand it over to anyone that is not an employee of an agency. There are a handful of artists that are the exception to this rule, and trust me, they have earned that spot. If you’re just starting out in the field, the skulls won’t be going to you.
4) Learn the inner workings of the agency: If you took a facial reconstruction class, would they let you do a facial reconstruction? This is where you might hit a brick wall: *Not every agency or medical examiner believes in facial reconstruction so they may give an emphatic NO!* And they’ll likely stick to their guns.
Many artists already in LE have run into this, and they will never do a facial recon unless they move somewhere else, or the people that said “no” move somewhere else, or retire.
5) If they say YES, take several facial reconstruction classes: One 1-week class is generally not enough to do this work and do it justice (check my training page.) There’s no sense in spending hundreds or thousands of dollars taking classes before you know whether the agency will let you do one. Plus, you will probably have to pay out of your own pocket. Every artist I know has had to pay for their own classes at some point…another reality of the field.
6) If they say NO: you will probably have to move to find an agency that will allow you to do facial reconstruction.
This is why it is so hard to get into forensic art: The work is in law enforcement. You generally need to join first, then dig in your heels from there.
And..even then, you will have do it as a sideline to your regular job in LE. There are probably less than 50 full-time forensic artists out there, and they do all facets of the work (composites, age progressions, etc), not just facial reconstruction. I can’t think of anyone that does facial reconstruction as a full-time paying career, 40 hours a week. That job just simply doesn’t exist.
I would STRONGLY advise anyone reading this to NOT attempt to volunteer in this capacity! Facial reconstructions are the victim’s last chance to be identified; this work should only be done by highly trained people working within a team of anthropologists and other LE professionals.
This is another requirement of forensic artists: let go of your ego and desires. They don’t matter.
Only the victims matter in this line of work. If any artist forgets that, they are doing a disservice to the victims, and to the field as a whole.
Again, I promise to go into depth on each of these points. But, what I wrote is the stark reality of doing facial reconstruction work. And I wholly welcome comments by other artists too, with their advice.
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3 comments 
Answers, Blog, Facial Approximation
October 14, 2010
Posted by Lisa Bailey
Oct 14, 2010
Interesting topic! Yes, there are a lot of Chain of Custody issues with the reconstructions (facial approximations). As you mentioned, the skull, especially in homicide investigations, is a critical piece of evidence, so beware of that. You might have to do the reconstruction at the LE agency which you are hoping to help out. I look forward to the next post! PS: I write this as I take a quick break from sculpting ;-)
Oct 21, 2010
I love the concept of becoming a forensic artist as I’m now in college and have to consider a career path, however, I do wonder if computers will replace the necessity of this skill. I’ve been doing research and found that there’s a lost accuracy when dealing with the computers for this type of work. Nevertheless, the reliance of that source is unknown (it’s the internet) and I would like a second opinion.
Oct 22, 2010
Dominga, I certainly don’t think computers willl replace forensic artists. Every computer composite system was developed and advertised with a tagline reading like “…for use when a composite artist isn’t available.” Computer systems are flawed for reasons too numerous to go into in a post here.
I think the biggest threat to forensic art is lack of awareness for the usefulness of it, and apathy. Some agencies need to be reminded constantly that they have a trained artist within their ranks. For “art” and “policing” to even be in the same sentence is a stretch for some agencies. They just won’t support its use. Or worse, they’ve seen it work, but just aren’t commmited to keep on using it. It’s a very frustrating thing for forensic artists to deal with.
I LOVE that you are interested in forensic art, and hope you pursue it after college. we need young and dedicated people within the ranks.
But, please understand that you will have to do it as an adjunct to a different job position within law enforcement. Full-time positions as a forensic artist are so rare, and so highly sought-after, it would be hideously wrong for me to let you beleive otherwise.
Most of the composites you see out there are being done by “dual-duty” forensic artists….the ones that are police officers first, and forensic artist second. There are hundreds of dual-duty artists, and only a handful of full-time ones.