oh this is very odd.
Fire up the CK.
Make a new ESP called test1 set it to active and select it and Skyrim.esm
Like with the old construction set to make a new race a make a copy (duplicate race) of the old which comes out as say bretonracecopy0000.
Now keep in mid i simply duplicated a race, left the default name changed nothing and saved the file.

Load up the game type in the console showracemenu and select the new race.

New race shows up under the old with same race name in this case 2 Breton races.

Now the problems.
There is no body just a head.
Also any items equipped do not show up and the characters head gets all messed up.
This problem cant be unique to me.

Might be the first one to make a custom race with the Creation Kit but others must be running into this problem.

http://www.creationkit.com/Tutorial_Creating_a_Playable_Race

thanks ThrottleKitty, lol gotta start somewhere

cool got it working!

i just missed the step (First, under Copied Data, set BretonRace for Morph Race and Armor Race)

everything else i did custom name and history works great, ah the first step on getting my own facegen face into the game....

So i'm just going to hijack this thread.

Exploring some of the customization we have for races/npcs/characters, and here's a neat one. Duplicate a head for a given race and assign it a unique TextureSet. From there, we can assign this head/texture combo to an NPC in the Character Gen Parts>Base Head Parts>Face dropdown menu. Sadly, this won't work on "Preset" NPCs, the player character will always use a races default head it seems. But, still could be handy.