“How many forensic artists are there, anyway?”

Reality check: there are very few full-time forensic artists out there. I’ve heard a number of people say that there are only 10-15 or so in the US, but I think that number is low. I know 10 full-time artists myself, and I’m just one person!

So there have to be more……but how many? Beats the heck out of me.  There’s really no way to count, because someone’s official job title may not reflect it. A police officer could have worked for years at their agency doing composites in addition to their normal duties, and then that evolved into doing composites full-time, but their job title stays the same. It also stands to reason that these jobs are in major cities, because they are densely populated, and have their fair share of bad guys to boot. It also stands to reason that the agency has the budget and can justify the need for a full-time artist.

There are jobs that are full-time forensic art, and the job title would reflect that, so maybe that’s where that 10-15 number came from. But anyway, for most artists this job is on an “as-needed” basis, in addition to their regular job in a law enforcement agency.

Of the full-time artists out there, some do composites all day, every day. Like, 5-10 drawings a week, maybe more.  My hat goes off to them, because frankly I don’t think I could take that pace. My work is a mixture of all the types of forensic art, so I get a lot of variety.  I can work on a reconstruction and get my hands all gunked up with clay, and then spend the next day doing a digital retouch of a morgue photo. I totally love my job. Can you tell?

So there’s one thing that people don’t realize when they insist that they are dying to be a full-time artist: composites are exhausting. I don’t mean just drawing for 8 hours straight. I mean the emotional exhaustion, working with a witness or victim that may have just through hell.  It’s not easy, and forensic artists that do composites full-time are my heroes.