Paging Bill Clinton...
Actually, I’ve seen this technique used on true crime documentaries, then seen pictures of the actual person. They can get very close to the person’s actual appearance. In some cases, if they have a little hair to go by, they can get the hair color right, and sometimes even eye color.
When police find a skeleton of an unidentified person, the skull is all they have to go by, so some experts quite a while ago developed the technique of reconstructing the face with clay, based on standard measurements of skin thickness at different points on the face and head. they have standards for each race, caucasian, black, oriental, etc.
They use rubber standoffs attached to the artificial skull at certain points, add clay to the level of the original skin, do some artistic shaping of the clay, add eyes, and start painting it.
The end result is incredible, almost always very close to what the person actually looks like, and the nose, lips and ears are usually very close as well. You can look at the reconstruction and then a picture and you’re looking at two views of the same person, with very minor differences.