Both is Skyrim and in Oblivion I opened the creator a lot just to do little tweaks. I generally svck at character creation.

It's not just the lighting. It's the close up camera angle that throws me off. Once I was shocked to see my character look like big head but small face, eyes too close, and mouth too narrow. If we could just zoom out to a further distance so that I could see what my character would look like without the fisheye view.

Anyway, to answer the original poster:

Here is what I do:

1. Use Optimized Facegen Files
http://tes.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=35487
Do the OBMM "bsa invalidation step' once, clicking Update Now, and then switch back to BSA Redirection.
Don't leave OBMM on BSA Invalidation or else you will see more and more textures not load their _n.dds files and turn invisible.
This mod also fixes all the seams in HGEC body 1.21

2. Install your third party face texture. I like this one by Enayla:
http://tes.nexusmods.com/downloads/file.php?id=14805

3. If you use a third party body texture then try to edit your face texture to match the tone of the body texture.
I had to use Photoshop on Enayla's texures match the tones of F-INevOblivion body textures

4. Import the npc faces mod ( mods that change the shapes of npc faces ) of your choice into your bash.

5. Don't use the self shadows graphics feature in Oblivion unless you really like it and are willing to see neckline shadows sometimes.

Ugly? No. Scrawny? Yes. Even for an elf lass she looks a bit too much on the thin side. Eat something, girl.

This is probably exactly why the NPCs in Oblivion are the way they are. Can you imagine having to do this for every single NPC in the game?

Back when the game first came out I started making a new character very early on a Saturday morning. I kept tweaking, tweaking, tweaking. I couldn't get what I wanted, it was really frustrating. I was http://morrowind4kids.com/pseronwyrd/Screenshots/ScreenShot71.jpg around 10:00 that night. I felt embarrassed: I had spent a whole day doing nothing but moving a bunch of sliders around.

I learned a lot about how to finesse the sliders, though. I've spent less time on my other characters.

She looks great! I know it's doable. It's just that at around the two-hour mark, I feel myself chomping at the bit. I too, have learned to work the sliders as well, moving forward. I just wish that on 360, I had better lighting on the character creation window, I mean WTH, we are creating a character and you make the lighting extra-moody?

@kiitan: I make my characters with love. I expect others to do the same. Lol, jk.... but not really.

Oh I don't know, I don't think they are all ugly:
http://i798.photobucket.com/albums/yy265/bassmunkee/Oblivion/new_niamh/this_one_040312_5.jpg
http://i798.photobucket.com/albums/yy265/bassmunkee/Oblivion/new_niamh/SI_Adventures/cutter.jpg
http://i798.photobucket.com/albums/yy265/bassmunkee/Oblivion/new_niamh/this_one_040312_3.jpg
http://i798.photobucket.com/albums/yy265/bassmunkee/Skyrim/dungeoneering.jpg
But then again I may be biased...!

Would be interesting to know Trixy901′s opinion on all this. Why not come back and debate? As I think I′ve already said, there are not many NPCs that are really ugly, most of them look very decent to me.