Set up a completely new character. Set the “appearance” to 1.1.9 I think… (the one with the glowing armor for the chest piece) and started playing the tutorial. By the time I completed the “set up camp tutorial” where you place the campfire my character was reset back to the basic blue character appearance. So I lost what I set for my original appearance. I returned to sanctum and see myself as a simple looking character and there are no options to chance my look back to what I had.
(edit: tried another attempt - new character, select different appearance than default, select starting location, go into planet and I am back to being the default character look and my appearance selection is lost.)