ZThemes
One of my characters is ridiculously vain (to the point he considers himself horribly disfigured over some minor scars on his face and refuses to go out in public without a full-face mask). He also tends to be theatrical, selfish, obsessive, paranoid and a bit too much megalomaniac. He has many traits commonly found in villainous characters, but I don't intend him to be a villain. Any advice on writing him in a non-villainous manner? How can I make him a bit more heroic or at least neutral?
a-nom-de-plume

Make him do good stuff. 

Our alignment is not determined by our traits but by our actions.

Motivation is another key factor. 

I’ve got two characters for you to look at. 1) Howl, from Howl’s Moving Castle (we’ll be using the Diana Wynne Jones novel, as Howl is less of a cowardly vain dweeb in the movie), and 2) Roy Mustang from Fullmetal Alchemist, the manga. 
1) Howl is vain, selfish, and a massive coward (or as Sophie put it, a slitherer-outer). He slips out of conflicts, runs away, and throws a tantrum when his hair ends up being dyed the wrong color. He appears to do things on a whim, and not pay attention to what’s going on. He blows all the money on seemingly useless junk. 
Let’s look at what he actually gets done in the book.
He basically let a kid off the street into his house, then later an old woman. He gathers the parts of the dismantled prince and royal wizard, and helps reassemble them. He literally gave up his heart to help out a stranger that would have died without him. We find out that running away is basically his tool for coping with his cowardice- he makes himself think that he’s running away so that he can end up going round the corner and arriving like a big damn hero. That’s not all, but it gives you the idea. He’s got good intent and good actions. So he’s a pretty awesome guy, right? Even if his girlfriend will tell you otherwise until she’s blue in the face. 

2) Roy Mustang, for your megalomania. The guy’s ambition is to move up as high as he can in the military. When people ask why, he gives them a stupid reason about wanting to change the female uniforms (kudos, btw, to the mangaka for having an nearly equal male/female military full of competent female badasses, who actually had the same uniform as the males). Later, we find out that Roy, while a total megalo, wants only to protect the people that work below him (which he always does to the best of his abilities) and seeks to move up as a benevolent leader so that he will have the power to take care of everyone. 

Condensed advice: Good intent, good actions. 

-Evvy