If you change your race via player.SetRace, then close the game, the next time you load the game your head texture will have vanished. Changing to another race and back to your desired race fixes the issue until you close the game again.

Steps To Reproduce:
Step 1: Enter player.SetRace HighElf in the console (if the character is another race, mine was Imperial)
Step 2: Save the game
Step 3: Close the game
Step 4: Re-launch the game and load your save

The head texture will now have vanished. Entering the showracemenu command to change anything has no bearing on whether the head texture disappears.

This happens on an unmodded Steam edition installation on Win7 x64 using the latest nVidia beta drivers at the time of writing (285.79) with a GTX 460.

I realise it's not an issue that will affect the majority of players, but for those of us who regret their initial choice, a fix would be greatly appreciated

Had this yesterday. Some people had missing head. Reload fixed it, also encountered problem where people were missing other textures and it was replaced with purple color.

You mean loading the game save again? If so, I don't think that fixes it for me, but I'll try next time I start the game

Note that this only applies if you change your race, not if you make slight changes to your existing character.

I opened up the console to make changes when I noticed afterwards that for some reason my character wasnt that big even though I had weight on max when created. Changed that, and one or two face things, and the changes applied to my character with no problems.

Yeah, that's true. I still hope it will get fixed, since I've sunk too much time into the game in order for me to bear a restart

You can fix the missing head texture by using setrace to change your race to a different head mesh (eg. imperial to argonian) and back again and it will remember it between saves during the same session, but as soon as you exit to the main menu or exit and restart you will have to reset it again. Also, it doesn't remember some of the changes you make in showracemenu after resetting the head, so you are pretty much stuck with some of the defaults.

Indeed, that's what I've been doing. I don't mind the default it's giving me, as I rather like it, but I was hoping there was either some form of permanent workaround or a fix coming

Do you happen to know why it happens?
My best guess would be that SetRace doesn't set correct textures for the changed-to race, and so when you close the game (and purge the console buffer) it opts for no texture rather than "mix-n-match" like it does after the first time you hit SetRace.

That seems reasonable. That might be fixable if someone can come up with a function to set the texture path, or if someone can figure out how to hex edit the save file to make this change manually. It's remembering changes you make to the face geometry, which you can see by changing the hair/facial hair/brows/eyes: they will match the contour of the invisible head (though maybe it's the default head).

This coupled with the fact that using "showracemenu" to change your race messes up all your stats is really annoying. There is pretty much no way to change your race without messing something up.

Okay, I've done a few experiments:

• Changing EVERYTHING except Preset in ShowRaceMenu while head is broken
  
• Changing EVERYTHING except Preset in ShowRaceMenu after "fixing" head with SetRace
  
• Changing only presets in ShowRaceMenu while head is broken
  
• Changing preset after head is fixed with SetRace

I did it twice for all these test cases: Once by simply saving the game, then quitting to main menu. Second time, I saved, loaded, saved again with no changes, quit to main menu, loaded.

In all cases, the head texture is entirely missing, only apparel is still shown.

Some remarks:

• Settings picked in ShowRaceMenu -are- remembered even though the sliders don't indicate it
  
• Changing eye colour while head is broken shows floating eyes, but they vanish again after quitting to menu
  
• Even clicking on another race and clicking back to your player.SetRace chosen race will break the stats

It seems to be quite impossible to discern anything from the save files, as even 2 files of the same char saved in quick succession will still have a large number of differences internally. So unless there's a decrypter / editor somewhere (Could only find one for Morrowind ) then it looks like we have to hope Beth takes pity on us and fixes this

Update:

I found a way to work around this issue, but it is a bit of a pain... I'll post the steps here for anyone who is interested (feel free to re-post these steps to the gaming site / forum of your choice, no attribution necessary but it would be appreciated ).

I do not know if this will disable Steam achievements! I have not had a chance to test it, so don't flame me if it does (if anyone wants to test it with a save they have right before they got an achievement, that'd be cool).

• Make a new save in a separate slot
  
• Write down how many points you put into Magicka, Health, Stamina
  
• Write down the skill points you have in all your skills (even the ones you haven't even touched)
  
• Change back to your original race via player.SetRace
  
• Enter ShowRaceMenu to get to the race menu
  
• Pick your new race and the looks as needed, name your character, hit OK
  
• Overwrite the duplicate save you created before doing this
  
• Quit to main menu
  
• Load the save you just overwrote
  
• Walk / sprint and stop again and you'll see your arms are no longer crossed
  
• If you want to avoid "cheating":
  
  • Find a perk you own and want to temporarily remove by doing help "perkname" 4 and write down the hex code it finds (calling it perkhex)
    
  • player.removeperk perkhex
    
  • Spend your "free point" back into that perk
    
  • player.setlevel X where X is the level you were before you started doing this
• Commands assume X is the number of points you increased skills by (1 time levelled = 10 points):
  
  • player.modav magicka X
    
  • player.modav health X
    
  • player.modav stamina X
• Commands assume X is the value you wrote down for your skill levels
  
  • player.setav skill alchemy X
    
  • player.setav skill alteration X
    
  • player.setav skill marksman X
    
  • player.setav skill block X
    
  • player.setav skill conjuration X
    
  • player.setav skill destruction X
    
  • player.setav skill enchanting X
    
  • player.setav skill heavyarmor X
    
  • player.setav skill illusion X
    
  • player.setav skill lightarmor X
    
  • player.setav skill lockpicking X
    
  • player.setav skill onehanded X
    
  • player.setav skill pickpocket X
    
  • player.setav skill restoration X
    
  • player.setav skill smithing X
    
  • player.setav skill sneak X
    
  • player.setav skill speechcraft X
    
  • player.setav skill twohanded X

And there you have it. I have confirmed that closing the game or just quitting to the main menu will preserve your head mesh. I suspect you can now also use ShowRaceMenu to change everything except Race / six / Preset if you want to customise your new race further.

does this work for lets say a Dremora?

ok this is quite frustrating. showracemenu breaks all skills if you change race with it.

and if i use player.setrace it makes my head invisible on the new race.

Now as an interesting aspect of this, I created my character as a wood elf.

I am trying to change my race to nord, so i do player.setrace nord and i lose my head

but i can do any other race, and it works. But if i try to change to nord it does not work.

Any ideas? going though the LONG list of console commands to fix my skills, levels, and the like really is not how i want to spend an evening.

yeah well iv been trying all day just to be able to play as a dremora, having same issue you are having but mine is worse since Dremora is not a Pre Race (the starter ones in showracemenu)

Thanks for posting this. Just a tiny suggestion. if you type "player.setav magicka X" you can set it directly to what value you had it at. Also, by doing this you'll avoid the green text it changes into with the modav. Modav treats it as a modifier, as if you were wearing a piece of equipment I think. Setav treats it as your naked, unbuffed level.

Unless this breaks something I'm unaware of.

Also I had to take the "skill" out of "player.setav skill destruction x" and so on.