How to clean vintage action figures

As any serious collector of vintage action figures or contemporary collectible action dolls knows, the Holy Grail of any collection is an action figure graded NRFB - Never removed from box!

However, for any collector who has picked up a low grade bargain for sentimental nostalgic value or happened upon a hard to find item that needs some attention this is a brief guide to removing dirt from action figures.

The 1998 Bruce Lee action figure (produced under license from Media Asia Consumer Products Ltd) I'm using in this lens had seen some heavy use and had clearly fallen foul of the enemy of all action figures - children! The upper body and face were blackened with years of grime and actually sticky to touch before cleaning. There were also random splashes of paint on the face and some previous attempts at covering ink stains which would need to be tackled with particular care.