Given the era and geographic location he lived, plus the type of work he is said to have done (carpentry), he was probably quite weather beaten and not the "prissy marshmallow" of man that he is depicted as in most images.

It's human nature to want to look at "beauty", and through the ages, the images of Christ have strived to meet that.  If we're going to worship someone, we want that someone to be "easy on the eyes".

That being said, in reality I don't think Christ was a particularly handsome man.  He was probably just an average looking Jewish man of his time.   He also probably had darker skin because unless you were royalty, the era he lived meant spending long hours in the hot sun labouring just to get the daily necessities of life.  Few had the luxury of sitting in a high chair being catered too.

"It is good to see ourselves as others see us. Try as we may, we are never
able to know ourselves fully as we are, especially the evil side of us.
This we can do only if we are not angry with our critics but will take in good
heart whatever they might have to say." - Ghandi