History Main / FacialCompositeFailure

* ''{{Series/CSINY}}'' had an episode where the drawing failed because the boy who witnessed the crime was actually describing a character in his comic book.

* ''Series/{{Elementary}}'' had a sketch of a criminal that aroused some suspicion from [[TheWatson Joan]], because she had the feeling she'd seen him before; Sherlock was already suspicious because the descriptions given by the various eyewitnesses were unusually similar, even when recalling their descriptions much later. [[spoiler: The sketch was actually of Torgo from Film/ManosTheHandsOfFate, and the witnesses who described him were colluding with each other to conceal their own involvement in the crimes under investigation.]]

* ''Series/{{Hunter}}''. Hunter comes home to find the [[DropDeadGorgeous body of a beautiful woman]] in his house, [[ItWasThereISwear which later vanishes]]. He has a sketch artist reproduce her features, but is later embarrassed when Hunter shows the sketch to someone who knew her in life, who says it's a good likeness but whoever made the sketch must have been in love with her because she wasn't ''that'' beautiful.

** One of the team appears to be describing a suspect to Abby, who's making a composite on her computer. When the picture is shown to the audience, it looks exactly like Ducky. [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] when it turns out that they already knew the identity of the suspect and were just playing around with the composite program.

* In ''VideoGame/BioshockInfinite'', after Booker gets the entire city after him, you hear a PA announcement describe the 6'1", brown-haired, green-eyed, Caucasian and thoroughly American protagonist as "either a Mulatto dwarf or a Frenchman with a missing left eye, no more than four foot five inches." Since Columbia is so [[PoliticallyIncorrectVillain violently xenophobic]], it makes sense they'd rather peg a minority than an American. Later, you find a woman describing Booker to a sketch artist, and the picture looks like [[{{VideoGame/Bioshock1}} Sander]] [[MythologyGag Cohen]].

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* In ''{{San}}'', Cao Cao's wanted poster doesn't look a thing like him... except for his nice hat, and thus this gets him arrested.
* The Police of ''WebComic/{{Vinigortonio}}'' mistake Platypus for a human with weird shaped head.

** In the ''Stormblood'' Hildibrand quests, Nashu tries to put together a composite sketch of the Kugane Wolf Burglar. Turns out Nashu is a TerribleArtist and the resulting picture looks like a five-year-old drew it and, and the [[PlayerCharacter Warrior of Light]] clearly thinks it's not going to be of any use.

* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV''
* An early Limsa Lominsa quest has you giving a sketch of a dine and dasher to the local guards. While you don't see the sketch yourself, the person you give it to comments that the sketch looks more like the prow of a ship than a man's face.

* An early Limsa Lominsa quest in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has you giving a sketch of a dine and dasher to the local guards. While you don't see the sketch yourself, the person you give it to comments that the sketch looks more like the prow of a ship than a man's face.

** Jaco himself draws one of these in ''Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF'' and its retelling in ''Anime/DragonBallSuper''. The one he portrayed? ''Freeza''.

* Sanji, TheChewToy of ''Manga/OnePiece'', spent a great deal of time desiring to get a bounty put on his head (since a bounty translates directly into [[PowerLevels fighting power and awesomeness]]). When that finally happened, the cameraman that tried to get a picture of Sanji [[CameraObscurer left the lens-cap on]], so they had to make his poster based off second-hand descriptions. Sanji's wanted poster ended up as a terrible artist's rendition that looks only vaguely like him. However, the second part of this trope didn't kick in much since everyone but a zombie with Luffy's personality legitimately failed to recognize him from the sketch. The sketch's consequences come up in a different way when the crew encounters [[spoiler:Duval, whose face is near-identical to the sketch]]. This did work in Sanji's favor, as [[spoiler: this led to Sanji's father, Vinsmoke Judge being unable to find him]]. Luckily for Sanji, after the TimeSkip, he gets an actual photo, albeit an incredibly embarrassing one.
* In the ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'' manga, Gold has to give a description of Silver to a police officer. He exaggerates all of Silver's facial features so much that it looks like a grotesque monster and nothing like Silver. This was however, done deliberately -- he didn't want the police interfering with [[ItsPersonal his vendetta]]. We do get to see Silver's reaction when he's walking through a town and sees his wanted poster on the wall. He looks at it, {{Face Fault}}s, then stares at it for a moment while {{Sweat Drop}}ping. It eventually turns into a BrickJoke of sorts: [[spoiler:when Blue tries to arrest Silver for the things he did at the beginning of the ''Gold/Silver/Crystal'' arc, Gold pulls out the wanted poster and points out that it looks nothing like him]].
* Suzume, the DarkChick of a gang of ''Ronin'' in ''Manga/SamuraiUsagi'', reacts to facial composites being handed out of her and her allies by wanting to hunt down the one who drew them.
* Happens in ''Literature/ScrappedPrincess''. The fact that it seems the police sketch looks totally the same when one drawn by a person with zero artistic skill, or a "professional" street painter, makes it looks like the whole world suffered from the [[PlanetOfHats Bad Artist Hat]].

* ''Manga/SketDance'' has a chapter in which Bossun tried to sketch a profile of something with "a protruding head, an antennae, a face like a bat's and has spotted butterfly-like features". His drawing ended up looking like a disgusting alien monster and, according to Himeko, "Nothing would look like that crap". However such an object does exist, much to Bossun's own surprise, though obviously it turned out ''not'' to be the object Quecchon was looking for.
* In ''Literature/{{Slayers}}'', when a bounty is put on Lina's, Gourry's, and Zelgadis's heads, their wanted posters turn out something like this.

** [[http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/photogallery/police-sketches-only-a-mother-could-love.html?curPhoto=26 Steve Buscemi robbed the bank in Indiana with fake teeth and make-up pockmarks.]]