At anatomy.one, we’re constantly fascinated by the intricate connections between science, art, and technology – fields that, at first glance, might seem disparate but often converge in remarkable ways.
Today, we’re incredibly excited to bring you an interview that perfectly embodies this fascinating intersection, offering a profound source of inspiration for any artist.
We sat down with Natalie Murry, a leading forensic artist, a professional who dedicates their unique talents to assisting law enforcement and medical examiners in identifying individuals. Their work isn’t just about drawing; it’s a testament to how deep anatomical knowledge elevates artistic practice. Imagine the challenge: transforming the silent language of a skull into a visual representation of a person’s former self, meticulously applying scientific precision to inform every brush stroke or digital line. This process demands not only a keen artistic eye but also a profound understanding of skeletal structure, muscle attachments, and tissue depth – a true fusion of the scientific method with creative expression. From sketching suspects based on witness descriptions to painstakingly reconstructing faces from skeletal remains, this artist’s contributions are invaluable in bringing closure to families and aiding criminal investigations.
Join us as we delve into the world of forensic facial reconstruction, explore the journey of a true pioneer in the field, and discover how the delicate balance of scientific mastery and artistic interpretation breathes life back into the past, offering incredible lessons for artists striving for realism and depth in their own work.
On Your Journey as a Forensic Artist
Anatomy.one: Could you please share a bit about your journey and what led you to specialize in the fascinating and crucial discipline of forensic art, specifically facial reconstruction? What initially captivated you about studying the skull as a foundation for art?
Natalie Murry: As with most forensic artists, I entered the profession when I was a police officer. Many officers have a specialty, like K9 or investigations or SWAT. My specialty was forensic art. I was working as a patrol officer when my sergeant approached me to tell me the department was sponsoring a week-long workshop for composite artist training. She knew I liked to draw and asked if I’d like to attend. I did, and just days after the workshop I did my first composite on a rape case. When I brought my drawing back to the station, I showed it to one of the other officers. He said he recognized the suspect. I described the vehicle the rapist had been driving, and he confirmed the person he thought matched my drawing drove just such a vehicle. My drawing had identified the suspect, and I was hooked. I did composites for my department as needed while I continued to work patrol.
A few years later, I was assigned to work on a task force with the FBI investigating bank robberies in the Seattle area. During that assignment, the entire task force unit went to Quantico for training. While there, I found out they had a 3-week workshop on Forensic Facial Imaging, which taught other types of forensic art besides just composites: postmortem imaging, age progression, and 2D reconstructions. I was fortunate to be selected to attend, and I returned to Quantico the following year and learned these techniques. Right before I left for the forensic facial imaging training, I went to a Death Investigation course taught by forensic anthropologist Dr. Kathy Taylor who worked at the King County Medical Examiner’s Office (also known as the ME’s office) in Seattle. I approached her after the class and told her I was going to Quantico to learn to do 2D reconstructions, and
asked if that would be something that would be of use to her at the ME’s Office. She said it would be very helpful, so I contacted her when I returned to Seattle after the 3 weeks. I went down to the ME’s office one Friday when I was on duty and they asked me to do a drawing of a deceased man with some facial trauma that they had in their office at that time in order to see if I had enough skill. Apparently, I passed the test, and I worked with Dr. Taylor for the next 23 years until her untimely death from cancer. She was an incredible forensic anthropologist who taught me a great deal and I dedicated my book, “Reading the Skull” to her. I deeply miss working with her and talking with her about our cases. In 2004 I had to retire from police work following back surgery, and I have worked as a freelance forensic artist since that time.
The Book “Reading the Skull”
Anatomy.one: Your book, “Reading the Skull,” is considered a seminal work. What motivated you to write it, and what fundamental knowledge or perspective do you hope readers will gain from it?
Natalie Murry: In the US, we had one book written in 2000 about how to do facial reconstructions from the skull. It was a very good book when it came out, but over the years I’ve found it to be somewhat basic in the information it gives about working with the skull. It didn’t go into enough detail for me in order to personalize the drawings, it left them fairly generic. The way I considered it was that it helped me draw a person from a skull, but I wanted to draw this person from this skull.
There was another book that came out a few years later from the UK, but I found it didn’t explain things as clearly as I thought beginning artists might require. For instance, it mentioned specific information regarding the lateral portion of the supraorbital margin, saying the artist needs to note if it was average or robust in size in regards to knowing how to shape an eyebrow. I thought an artist who didn’t do many reconstructions (and there are many that may do just one every year or so) may not know what constituted robust for that section of the bone. I believed it would be helpful to have a book that had photos that would show examples of average and robust portions of that bone side by side. That started the idea of a book in my head.
Over the years, I’d been collecting studies I found online from anthropologists, odontologists, plastic surgeons – anyone who did a study about the face that might have relevance to forensic art. I’d been fortunate to teach a forensic art class at the Forensic Anthropology Center at Texas State (also known as a Body Farm), and I had been given permission to photograph several skulls from their collection that had life photos associated with those skulls. Along with my medical examiner cases through the years, those photos gave me a resource that I could test out the studies I’d collected to see if they held out as viable and accurate for forensic art work. The studies that worked for me I kept, and those that didn’t I discarded. Some allowed me to become more precise and detailed in my reconstructions, and I wanted to be able to share that info with other artists. I feel that the more information you can put in your drawing, the better a chance of an identification. Even if the info you put in the drawing is subtle and someone couldn’t put into words what it is about that face that they recognize, like the asymmetry of a face, it can still help make it more of the individual that someone knows.
What I want artists to learn is to be able to individualize their skulls, not to keep them generic. You don’t need to detail them out with moles and scars and tattoos and things you can’t possibly know from the skull, but you can show subtle things like whether the earlobes are attached or if all the features are tipping down slightly to the left.
Anatomy.one: What kind of audience is “Reading the Skull” intended for? Is it primarily for forensic artists or investigators, or does it also appeal to general artists (drafters, sculptors) or the public interested in the intersection of art, and science?
Natalie Murry: The book was originally intended for forensic artists, but I’ve learned that other artists have found use for it as well. Anyone interested in anatomy and how to draw the face more realistically can find use in it. You can learn how the features harmonize together and where the eyes really fit in the orbital cavities, what to do with different abnormalities and traumas on the skull and how those might appear externally. We once believed you could learn nothing about the ears from the skull because they’re mostly cartilage, but we now know you can learn a lot about them from the skull. I find that very exciting. I know they’re just ears, but if you’ve drawn boring average ears for twenty years and you suddenly learn you can draw lots of different ears now, it’s wonderful! If you find the skull interesting and want to know how it affects the appearance, this book can show you how. You can see how small bumps and divots in the bone are markers for where the features attach or line up on the face. It’s endlessly fascinating, and each skull is distinct just as each face is distinct.
The Art of Forensic Facial Reconstruction
Anatomy.one: For those unfamiliar with it, could you briefly explain what forensic facial reconstruction entails from an artistic perspective, and what its impact is on resolving missing persons cases or identifying human remains?
Natalie Murry: I’ll walk you through how I do a reconstruction. I’m contacted by someone at a medical examiner or coroner’s office about a skull they’ve recovered. Sometimes it’s an entire body, other times just a skull or just a cranium without a mandible. Often it’s from a clandestine grave, someone buried out in the woods. Other times it can be someone found in the water or washed up on shore. Occasionally, it’s a skull found inside a house or on a property that was left behind when someone moved. Many people die without their identification on them, or they are not discovered for years and their ID has rotted away by the time they’re found. The ME has tried to identify them by checking all local missing person cases and has not been successful. If the remains are still fleshed, they may have tried to get fingerprints. If there is property with the person, they’ve tried to get an ID that way. These days, DNA is becoming another option for identification. Normally, the artist is the last resort. This is because the drawing is not proof, it’s not of evidentiary value. It’s a tool to try and get identification, but you can’t identify someone fully by their resemblance to the drawing. Further investigation needs to be done to confirm the match: DNA testing, dental records, medical x-ray matching, official things that show that this person shares more than a similarity to a drawing.
When they contact me, I make arrangements to go to the ME’s office to photograph the skull. They’ve sent me the forensic anthropologist’s report, which will tell me the person’s sex, their probable ancestry, hopefully an age range, possibly a size (average, slender, heavy), anything else they can tell from the remains and their clothing and other property and the scene. I photograph the skull from several angles, but primarily the anterior (front) and both profiles. Other photos include anything that I see that is specific to this skull that I want to be sure to show on the drawing, a photo from an inferior view showing the palate (especially in the case of missing teeth so I can see the dental alveoli), and a photo of the superior view to see the overall shape of the skull. I then return home with my photos and download them to my computer.
I open the photos up in my drawing software and I do a drawing directly on top of the photo. This allows me to zoom in and out on the photo to see details, which I had already noted while at the ME’s office. Indications on the bone show me where the features attach, and I allow for specific
depths for muscle and skin on top of the bone. There are calculations to determine the shape and size of the nose that are done from the profile photo. Once I finish the digital drawing, I email it back to the ME. It can then be released to the media in a news article and posted on their website in an attempt to get people to call in with leads to identify the person. We find they get more leads with a drawing than just an article without any pictures. People pay more attention when there’s an image to go with the story, and it can be a powerful tool to help get some new leads to follow on a case that has been stalled. I’ve had a few cases that have been cold cases for 40 years that got victims identified after my drawing was released, so that was incredibly rewarding. Imagine your family member just disappearing and you didn’t know anything about where they were for forty years. That’s heartbreaking to me. That’s a huge reason to continue doing this work freelance after all this time. To be able to help just one more family find their person is worth it.
Anatomy.one: What are the most significant challenges when reconstructing a face from a skull, and how do you ensure maximum precision and artistic fidelity to the individual’s identity?
Natalie Murry: For me it’s most challenging when everything is just average on a skull, when it doesn’t have anything unusual or asymmetrical. That’s somewhat rare, most people display asymmetry but sometimes it’s very subtle. I don’t like drawing just an average face, I want to be able to show what makes this person unique and not like everyone else. Whether it’s their ears that stick out, their overbite, their uneven nostrils, their lumpy muscle attachments, their deep nasolabial furrows – anything. Whatever someone else knows them by, that’s what I want to be able to show. I look at that skull and run my fingers over the bone trying to find it. The more you know about what to look for, the better the chances of finding that key detail. One big advantage of doing reconstructions is that you already have the proportions of the skull there for you. You don’t need to guess if you have the eyes far enough apart, the nose long enough, or the mouth wide enough. That info is already right there looking at you.
The biggest challenge is when the skull has trauma and needs to be rebuilt either physically or digitally. As no skull is entirely symmetrical, it’s difficult to rebuild and know where the original would have deviated in that symmetry from the intact side. Any drawing is better than no drawing, but of course you want to do your best work for each case.
Learning Resources and Physical References
Anatomy.one: Given the depth of anatomical knowledge required for your work, what specific resources or references proved most invaluable to you when you were first learning about the nuances of the human skull? Beyond textbooks or digital models, what makes a physical skull reference truly useful for an artist or student? Are there particular features one should look for in a good anatomical model?
Natalie Murry: When I started facial reconstruction, I purchased a few training skulls to practice on. Many artists’ drawings appear flat when they start out. Learning to sculpt on the skull teaches you to see the skull in three dimensions and think of it that way while you’re drawing the face. You feel how the mouth juts forward in the center and falls back on the sides, like a horseshoe shape when seen from above. When you sculpt the muscles, you see how all the muscles around the mouth come down and insert into the orbicularis oris. It’s a complicated network of muscles, and the orbicularis oris doesn’t attach to a bone on the face. That keeps the mouth mobile. The lower part of your face can move a lot more than the upper part as a result of that.
When you sculpt the face, you make round balls for the eyes, and place them in the eye sockets. You then make the lower eyelid and the upper eyelid, and drape them around the eyeballs to hold them in the skull. That teaches you to think of the eye as a ball as you draw it, instead of this flat almond shape that many artists start with. Really feel it as a ball as you draw it. You see that the eyelids curve back into the orbits and softly cradle the eye, they’re not on a flat plane. Feel them cradle the eye as you draw them, feel them holding the eye in, the lower eye lid first, and the upper lid overlapping the lower lid laterally. Look at them from overhead, see how the inner attachment for the eyelid is further forward in space than the outer attachment. Shade the eyelids and the eyes appropriately. Learn how far back the ears are, don’t put them too far forward on the cheek when seen from the side. The cheekbones show you where the bone juts forward so you can see how to shade the face. The mandible is clearly the jawline, and the teeth show you where the mouth goes. Measuring the nose is more complicated but you can clearly see where it belongs on the face. A good skull model is a wonderful learning tool. Even if you never consider yourself a good sculptor, you’ll learn a lot from it.
A good anatomical model should be detailed enough to be useful. Cheap skulls that you get for Halloween decorations aren’t going to be accurate enough to be useful. Most will have something weird on them: not full depth orbital cavities, strangely-shaped nasal cavities, weird bumps on the skull, too many teeth. Look for a skull that has the sutures in the right place, not just randomly drawn on. Check the nasal cavity. I’ve seen skulls that say they’re anatomically accurate that have just a strange raised triangular-shaped hole with no internal bone structure for the nose. Don’t buy a skull that has the mandible attached and open. You’d always have to do a reconstruction with an open mouth and wouldn’t get to work on doing a proper mouth at rest. Look at the shape of the skull in profile, and compare it to a real skull. A lot of times that’s a dead giveaway on quality right there.
Technology and the Future in Forensic Art
Anatomy.one: How has technology evolved in the field of forensic art since you began your career, and what impact has it had on the precision and efficiency of your work as an artist?
Natalie Murry: The biggest thing for me is digital drawing. When I started, everything was drawing in graphite. I draw light, so when I ran my work through a copy machine, half of my shading would disappear. Drawing digitally, I don’t have that issue any longer. It makes it simple to make changes to a drawing quickly and easily, and I can do different looks on different layers without having to do more than one basic drawing. If the ME wants a version with short hair and one with long hair, I can just do two different hairstyles on different layers and toggle them on and off. If the person is mixed race and they want two versions of skin tones, that’s easily done as well. I’ve had a case where the forensic anthropologist was unsure if the victim was of European or Hispanic ancestry. (It’s sometimes difficult to tell but obviously important to show one or the other for identification purposes.) I drew the basic sketch but did two versions of skin tones and hair without having to do two separate drawings.
AI is starting to be used now. I’ve done a few drawings where I’ve animated them with a tool that’s on MyHeritage, a genealogy site. They have a photo tool where you can put in a photo of an ancestor and they make the face move a little, smile and blink. I put a couple of my reconstructions in there to see what happened. It’s kind of eerie, but it’s just another tool to try and get attention on the case. I’ve also used ChatGPT on a couple of drawings to see what happened if I ask it to turn my drawing into a photographic image. I’m not convinced that’s a great idea but it’s interesting. I’m concerned if the work looks like a photo that people will think it’s a photo of the deceased person, so if it doesn’t look exactly like the person that they’re missing, they won’t call. I was more comfortable
using that one on a historical reconstruction I did recently, as she was already identified and she’d died in the 1850s. We’ll see how AI progresses and changes in the next few years.
Anatomy.one: Looking ahead, what advancements or trends do you believe will be most influential in your field in the coming years, especially at the intersection of art and forensic science?
Natalie Murry: Definitely AI is the thing to watch, and DNA as well. MEs are getting DNA from skulls where they can and trying to get a good readable sample, then attempting to identify the person through investigative genetic genealogy. That will get easier to do as more and more people do their DNA kits for genealogy, which is a huge hobby. I read over 40 million people have done DNA testing, and Google estimates over 100 million in the next few years. But until everyone uploads their DNA and checks the box on GedMatch for police to be allowed to access their kits for their cases, they’ll still need artists. Who knows? People anticipated the end of forensic artists when police started using video security years ago and we’re still here. We are even used to enhance the images picked up on poor-quality video, so I guess things don’t always turn out as you’d think. As with many fields, the tech is exciting but the human element is still required. For the time being, tech can’t do what the artist can do.
Advice and Final Thoughts
Anatomy.one: For art students or young artists aspiring to specialize in forensic art, or who simply seek to improve their representation of the human form, what essential advice would you offer them?
Natalie Murry: As with all art specialties, practice. Life drawing is fantastic, we should all do it more (me included). If you can’t go to life drawing, find photos of faces and draw from those. Study them closely, see the forms. One practice that I do regularly is drawing composites. That’s normally where police artists sit down with witnesses to a crime and draw a suspect. They do that usually by showing the witness a series of photographs so the witness can point out features from those photos that resemble those of the suspect, as many people have difficulty describing the shape of features. The artist then makes a new face from all the pieces of faces from the different photos. I do practice composites by taking three or four photos (or more, if you like) and choosing the eyes from one photo, the nose from another, the mouth from a third. I’ll take the face shape from one, the hair from another. You then blend all these features together into a believable face. If it gets dull drawing faces with no or neutral expressions, find faces with angry expressions or happy faces, or see what happens when you mix expressions.
Again, get a skull model and put some clay on it. Learn to do a 3D reconstruction to see how the muscles and skin drape on the bone. Notice how the face goes forward and back in space, and how and where it turns to and away from the light. You can always learn more. I’m always learning more.
We extend our sincere gratitude to the forensic artist for sharing such insightful details about their profession, the journey that led them to it, and the incredible impact their work has on countless lives. Their dedication truly highlights the profound ways in which science, art, and technology converge to serve a greater purpose.
On our part, we’ve had the opportunity to use this book extensively while developing our own skull model. We found it to be one of the clearest and most interesting sources of information on the skull we’ve ever encountered. In many aspects, it has been far more useful to us than any traditional anatomy textbook.
For those eager to delve deeper into the fascinating world of facial reconstruction, and enhance their understanding of the human skull, the artist’s seminal work, “Reading the Skull,” offers unparalleled guidance.
As a special thank you to our anatomy.one readers, you can use the code “25AFLY1” at checkout for a 20% discount when you order from www.taylorandfrancis.com on “Reading the Skull”and other books!
Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from one of the best in the field.