system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: How do suspect drawings work?

 In crime tv shows, they have drawings of suspects based off a witness description - it usually matches criminal spot on when they get it figured out. IRL, are these drawings actually that spot on? It’s mind boggling to me that someone could draw a face that perfectly, when I don’t even know where I would begin describing the face even of a loved one. Are there people out there who’s sole job is to draw people based on description?
gpt
The artist has several templates to show the witness, and ask them questions like "Are the eyes more like this or that?".  They combine a bunch of features and ask the person "How is this wrong?".  The work takes skills beyond just drawing, to interact with the person and get a good drawing.

Some people are not very good in their recollections, often as affected by recent drinking etc.  The pictures are pretty generic, and lots of people look "like them".  Of course in a TV show set in LA there are still only 100 actors+extras in the shots.  If the drawing is accurate to 1:100, that means it only looks like one person on the set.  But in real LA with a population of 4M people, the picture looks like about 40K of them.  That's not going to be an Ah Ha moment in real life like it is on the TV show.