Okay, you know how when they’ll find a human skull, investigators will hire a forensic artist to reconstruct what the person’s face looked like as a way of helping to identify the remains? Has anyone done that with the various plastic skulls that are sold for educational purposes and published the photos? I’m not talking about the skulls which are artists creations, but the ones that are molded from a real human skull.
It would have to be a very high quality reproduction.
Muscles leave grooves in the bone where they are attached, IIRC this is where thickness of muscle mass can be determined. I am sure there are other small features needed that are lost in the reproduction.
I doubt I can be much more help. I focused more on the decay process end of forensic anthropology, not skull reconstruction. That and it was sigh so many years I have run out of fingers. I am sure we have a few here who can be of better assistance.
I’ve seen this technique. IANA Forensic Scientist, but I don’t put a whole lot of stock into it myself. I think there are just too many variables that can’t possibly be represented by a skull alone.
Also, Tuckerfan, I need a bit of clarification on your actual question.
Are you looking for these forensic re-constructions for sale somewhere, or are you looking to see if anybody has tried this on a generic skull (maybe a dentist’s teaching skull or something) just to see what the “person” would look like?
The second. It creeps me out to see them recreating a person’s face (though I think it’s cool at the same time, I just don’t think that I could do it for a living).
:eek: That’s why I’ve always avoided the recently deceased. Gimme someone who’s been picked clean any day. Not that there’s much call for for it in my present career. For some reason folks prefer things that were never alive in their theaters, except for leather on their recliners.
http://www.seminolesheriff.org/about/skull_reconstr.php
they cover it reasonable well on the how it is done.
Looking at their description, I would have to say no, not unless it is a very high quality copy.
dropzone the worse thing was the smell, what was worse was getting used to the smell and realizing you still stink a bit when picking up a blind date.
Can’t be any worse than my father picking mom up for a date while driving the hearse for the funeral home he worked for, and then stopping by the hospital to make a “pick up.” :eek:
IANA a forensic scientist either, but I have had a class or two in forensic anthropology. Perhaps the state of the field has changed in the ten years since I had the class, but back then, skull reconstructions were comically inaccurate.
Uh, anyway, yeah, I seem to recall some of the advanced classes doing that from time to time. Not any of the ones I was in, personally, but it was a skill they taught. Always seemed kinda fun–the best part of the class I took was playing with human remains. 
Yeah, as my wife, who used to take forensic x-rays, says when the kids are enjoying some gruesome CSI-ish TV show, “They can’t photograph the smell.” Avon used to sell a jasmine perfume in skinny roll-on bottles and she’d roll some on her upper lip before taking her pictures.