I managed to get something that vaguely approximated my cute Bosmer from Oblivion in the character creator, but once the game actually started I was horrified to discover that some of the things I changed several times just decided to pick their own positions (for example, instead of the light-coloured eyes I chose, they are pitch black) and I ended up with an evil [censored]-monster from hell. She is seriously evil-looking. Unfortunately, because this was my first play-through and I desperately wanted to get into the game, I didn't stop to recreate her and continued on... so for nearly 80 hours I have had this evil demon wench doing good deeds around Skyrim.
A similar thing happened with my Breton - I made someone that I was very happy with but once the game started, her forehead got bigger and her eyes got wider apart.