Joe Mullins

As a forensic artist, Washington-based Joe Mullins has helped trace countless missing children by sketching their age progression. With facial reconstructions of unknown skeletal remains, soft tissue reconstructions and fugitive updates he has helped solve many other police investigations too.

But in his spare time Mullins enjoys using his skills for ‘fun but scientific forecasts’ of the looks of celebrities 20 years from now or how their children might look. Thus, he sketched the future looks of artists like Madonna and Britney Spears and predicted in 2012 the looks of the child Kate Middleton and Prince William of Great Britain were expecting.

And the images do match with reality. ‘When I did Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise I did the child as a boy, but the image actually does look a lot like Suri,’ Mullins says. His work is ‘a mix of art and science,’ he says. ‘With my day job, I have acquired a skill which means it is always in the ball park.’

Mullins trained as a graphic designer before becoming a forensic imaging specialist. He studied at the Savannah College of Art & Design and has a degree from James Madison University. For his forensic skills, he received training from The FBI Academy, University of Oklahoma and the University of Dundee. Now, Mullins himself teaches Forensic Art Classes at the New York Academy of Art, in Tribeca, NY; George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, and The Art League in Alexandria, VA.