Courtroom sketches

I just remembered I actually emailed the sketch artist of that Robin Thicke one upthread to ask how much, and I guess it was some high-three-figure number and I never pulled the trigger. One day it will grace my office.

xps
not many courtroom artists are Toulouse Lautrec, but that's just taking the piss!

https://i.imgur.com/wT416B4.jpg

http://i64.tinypic.com/2itmwkj.jpg

🗣🎙 pic.twitter.com/Vlvyq6qOAE

— Craig Bro Dude (@CraigSJ) September 17, 2019

Peru ex-president denied bail in U.S., wife dragged from court after outburst https://t.co/KBwZ0Dq6BI pic.twitter.com/GRCwQcWZHg

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) September 13, 2019

Andrew and I have both mentioned upthread (about ten years ago) our local friend, John, who works freelance as a courtroom sketch artist. Yesterday, John worked a case involving *takes a deep breath* an Arizona attorney, who's also the elected Maricopa County assessor, accused of bringing pregnant women from the Marshall Islands to Arkansas and forced/paid them to give up their babies for adoption.

Some of his sketches are featured here. And from John's Instagram account (paintings for sale!), he describes what it's like to keep one toe dipped in this unique profession:

...I showed up early and Judge Wiederman allowed me in the empty courtroom to get a head-start on the backgrounds. It was a gamble that the hearing would last long enough to draw. A group of about six people were brought in ahead of the man we were there for, so I started sketching a defendant that vaguely resembled him out of an abundance of caution.

I ended up with two that were useable, a prosecutor, that defendant I mentioned and that unused start of the background. The most detailed one was the first one I started. In all I was in the court about 5 hours.

https://i.imgur.com/qSQ9iVw.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/yZX0gW2.jpg

lmao at the courtroom sketch of Weinstein's nudes pic.twitter.com/Uj7cL04X1m

— Nick “Thunder” Wiger (@nickwiger) February 5, 2020

Is this some kind of niche deviantART fantasy or is Ghislaine Maxwell really obsessively eyefucking a court sketch artist? pic.twitter.com/2GfwWHOW4q

— The Man Who Shot Liberty Mutual (@Decervelage) December 7, 2021

our local artist friend John is back at it, this time sketching the josh duggar child porn trial.
https://www.nwahomepage.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/90/2021/12/Josh-Duggar-Trial-2.jpg?w=900

plenty more to see if you gis but here's one with the shithead himself.

Ex-CIA coder behind WikiLeaks ‘Vault 7’ cache found guilty of espionage https://t.co/p6n4Cq5Bu7

— Dr. Sherifa Zuhur (@SherifaZuhur) July 14, 2022

https://cdn.greatlifepublishing.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/07/01150952/jsus-2-728x409.jpg

Did glem gormwald sell him out too

https://c.files.bbci.co.uk/17A1/production/_128394060_elonmuskdrawing.png

have they stopped teaching life drawing with models in art colleges these days? lol

Big question to potential jurors in the ComEd corruption trial: Do you have the time for this? https://t.co/FN4LIFrsji via @politico pic.twitter.com/Eet6Q19JsC

— Shia Kapos (@ShiaKapos) March 15, 2023

Donald Trump during his arraignment. Courtroom sketch by 🎨 Jane Rosenberg pic.twitter.com/DdfXkHhnUA

— Reuters Pictures (@reuterspictures) April 4, 2023

lol he's like a jaundiced Grinch.

aren't there actual photographs of this thing? do they still do the courtroom sketch for fun anyway?

Hey I'm having fun

Pretty sure cameras, still or motion, are still not allowed in most courtrooms. Our local courthouse requires you to put your cell phone in a locker.

Not allowed in federal courtrooms either, so it'll be all sketches if Trump ever gets that call.

They allowed a couple photographers in before the hearing began, but then booted them... so there are some real photos, but not of the arraignment itself

if you were a courtroom sketch artist who couldn't be bothered schlepping all the way to the courthouse, it must have been tempting to just stat at home, wait for the pre-arraignment photographs to appear on twitter and then just base your sketch on them. It's not like anyone's appearance is going to have changed too dramatically in the interim.

Just wait for the AI sketchers

jaymc already on it.

AI-generated courtroom sketch of Trump two weeks ago (via @EliotHiggins) vs. actual sketch today (via @reuterspictures) pic.twitter.com/UdsQhbu32P

— John M. Cunningham (@jmcunning) April 4, 2023

non-AI is clearly superior

what if you specifically ask the AI to make a courtroom sketch of Trump where he looks like the Grinch, though

it would produce something amusing, but far too literal for that prompt

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/1b3e30d8d4875e55181713b8fbeab637f1a6f4d3/0_273_3024_1814/master/3024.jpg?width=620&dpr=2&s=none

"Sam Bankman-Fried, with his short hair"

He seems so happy

starting to think some of these courtroom sketch artists lost money on FTX pic.twitter.com/36hzJkzaqa

— Molly White (@molly0xFFF) October 11, 2023

Lookin' suave:

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:ejihld4sywvvqwe67cdkn4jq/bafkreianwbswqdc2256qbdrhoxktvvvsgqcz4tdshklab4xx6ftqjzn7da@jpeg

Lookin' suave:

🖼

oh no! not bernie too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okoYy6Glazw

An alternate approach

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_fullsize/plain/did:plc:v4ohdv3xxwoqbitlvaifelue/bafkreia6jpbkchqwkeovg5f2feevo7feng25ttmftebf537j7ef73z5k3i@jpeg

we have a winner

https://i.imgur.com/RzeHtmr.jpg

Goddamn smirky eyebrow raised Poochie cartoons nowadays

lol. He does make that face sometimes, although I imagine in the courtroom he has the badass scowl going.

For real though can I hire this courtroom portrait artist pic.twitter.com/oD4XFeOehu

— Austen (@Austen) October 30, 2023

Italy has the bug!

https://andreaspinelliart.it/courtroom-sketching-arrives-in-italy/

This one is pretty great, honestly:

https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:qrllvid7s54k4hnwtqxwetrf/bafkreiadurkgsewblowpvf6547ikkkerop23wyoywvta36tbt3xmwwo3di@jpeg