She also asked a forensic artist to create an image of the man's face using old photographs found in the original missing person file.

How do forensic artists create these renderings, and how reliable are they, really?

Mr. Mullins and other forensic artists work in a corner on the second floor of the center's headquarters.

A sadder role for the forensic artists is to recreate the face of a dead child, using morgue photos or skulls that have been recovered.

Not every forensic artist uses all of these skills.

Using this method, the forensic artist draws or paints on the photograph of a victim to repair tissue damage or decomposition.

So Entertainment Weekly recently asked a forensic artist to project, based on Pynchon's 1955 high school yearbook photo, what the writer might look like today.

The men's faces looked like those made by forensic artists.

Most commonly, however, only the bony skull and minimal or no other soft tissues are present on the remains presented to forensic artists.

The data available to forensic artists are still very limited in ranges of ages, sexes, and body builds.