Aah Dark Souls, where you can spend hours playing with the sliders, tweaking your perfect character... then spend 95% of the game either in a full-face helmet, or as a zombie with its face rotting off. Reminds me of Elder Scrolls, where hours are spent designing the perfect character, for me to then play the whole game in First Person and never see them.
Not that I'd ever give up those happy hours with the character creator.
My characters used fairly generic looking, attractive and athletic men and women - usually white - but more and more I've been finding joy in creating really unique looking characters. A short, stocky black woman with a large, squashed nose and small, squinty eyes. A weedy man with an awful, bright red haircut (such as one of those horrible obligatory "bowl cuts" RPGs usually stick in their character creators) and a scar disfiguring his face. A handsome, tattoo covered man with piercing eyes.
If there's a way to change how your character looks, I like to use it throughout the game as well: for example in DA2 I would have my Hawke look young and a bit rough during Act 1, very well groomed during Act 2 because of the rise to nobility, and by Act 3 the years are beginning to show: Hawke is experienced, and tired.
This goes hand in hand with the actual "role playing" aspect: I completely ignore any morality filters, approval ratings, and so on. I decide what kind of person my character is at the start of the game (trying to make them interesting to play and think about), then choose what they would choose. The black woman is brash and unfriendly, but has a heart of gold. The red-haired man is polite and soft spoken, but coldly logical and would burn a town to the ground if he thought it necessary. The tattooed man is charming, but will seek to turn any situation to his personal advantage and uses people (men and women) as disposable items. If anything happens that would be of particular significance to them, their perspective might change because of it, and somebody who started the game idealistic might end it bitter, or vice-versa.
Obviously a lot of the above depends on the game and how much flexibility it gives you, but I find I get a lot more enjoyment from RPG games this way, and my characters stick in my head a lot longer than the generic good guy or bad girl, always picking the "right" choice.