This isn’t just any Hello Kitty PC, it’s a Christmas Hello Kitty PC. PC modder Anthony Martino wanted to make a computer for his Hello Kitty-obsessed wife for Christmas, resulting in this red, white and green machine with loads of custom vinyl wrap.
Custom PC has been celebrating the best PC builds since 2003, and our Facebook group has over 300,000 members. We’ve seen many custom gaming PCs, from mods based on existing case designs to scratch builds. Here we talk to Anthony about how he created this festive Hello Kitty PC.
Custom PC: So how did this project start? What inspired you to build this Hello Kitty Christmas PC?
Anthony: My wife of 15 years is a HUGE fan of the mouthless demon kitty, erm, I mean Hello Kitty. She has an entire room dedicated to all her plushies and other Hello Kitty doodads. Her favorite holiday is also Christmas, so combining the two was something sure to bring her joy.
Custom PC: What design cues from the Hello Kitty world were you looking to incorporate into your build, and how did you go about implementing them?
Anthony: Since this was a holiday-themed build, I was looking to incorporate Hello Kitty’s color scheme (red and white), which is perfect for a holiday theme. We took the white Thermaltake Snow Edition case (how appropriately named!) and got a partial red wrap done to give it a candy cane appearance. Then I added some green, with the red and white on the interior lighting and cabling, to round out the theme.
Custom PC: How did you create custom cutouts for pieces such as the custom fan guard?
Anthony: I wish I could take credit for this, but I’ve been utilizing the extremely talented Jeff Mays of Jmmods for all the customized pieces inside the themed builds I’ve done. I don’t have the equipment or know-how to produce those pieces by hand myself, but I have the design vision to put together a theme and explain to him what I need to make it happen.
Custom PC: What’s the red and white piece underneath the graphics card?
Anthony: That’s a GPU support bracket. The newer GeForce RTX 3000-series cards are heavy, and I didn’t want the card to sag at the end. Again, thanks to Jmmods for translating my vision into reality
on that piece, and the same also goes for the custom PSU shroud and GPU backplate.
Custom PC: That’s some really clean color work on the outside. How did you get that finish?
Anthony: This time around, credit needs to go to a local friend, Carlos Alvarez, owner of SSP Vinyl. The folks there do vehicle wraps, window signage and so on, and he’s always been great to work with when adding exterior case details, such as images, color changes or lettering, for my custom PC builds. It’s vinyl wrap rather than paint.
Custom PC: Did you have to modify the case in any way?
Anthony: Aside from the wrap, no major modifications were made to the case.
Custom PC: We love the use of the screen on the NZXT Z63 cooler – did you make the image yourself, and does the system show any other images on the screen?
Anthony: My wife just downloads and uses the animated GIFs she finds that make her happy. At the end of the day, she’s the one looking at it, so she gets to choose the images that speak to her. She has multiple Hello Kitty images that she rotates through the screen, and she changes them regularly.
Custom PC: What’s your favorite part of your Hello Kitty PC?
Anthony: It’s a toss-up between the amazing G.Skill Trident Z Royal RAM, which allowed us to put in red, green and white moving lights that mesh great with the theme, and the GPU bracket. The latter has a cool lighting effect – Jmmods has created a system that links the pieces he makes, so you can have a unified lighting effect – there’s red and white lighting that flashes through them in the current setting, making a nice sequenced look.
Custom PC: Where did you get the custom cables?
Anthony: The custom cables were from CableMod.
Custom PC: This isn’t the first Hello Kitty PC you’ve built – what did you do differently in the other one?
Anthony: I built the other one around three or four years ago, and it was my first fully themed PC. It turned a lot of heads and caught a lot of attention when I released it. My wife loves the color purple, but I asked her to trust me when I built that original one with the mostly white theme and splashes of red.
In that build, I replaced the NZXT logo on the PSU shroud with a colored Hello Kitty piece that didn’t light up (the new build has a light-up PSU shroud cover). In addition, the fan shroud wasn’t as elaborate as this time around. The older build also featured SSDs with covers on them, which added some flavor to the inside, but lacked the GPU bracket that lit up.
The first one didn’t have a customizable image on the CPU area either, and the standard G.Skill Trident Z memory modules weren’t as nice-looking as the Royal models I used in the new build, plus I only filled two of the four memory slots in the old one.
Custom PC: Did you come across any difficulties? If so, how did you solve them?
Anthony: There were a few difficulties. The first case we purchased for this build was a smaller model, and we soon realized that it wouldn’t have room for everything inside it, so we had to bump up the case size. Then, because of the design of the radiator on the NZXT cooler, I couldn’t mount it all the way at the top front of the case. Instead, I had to lower it so that some of it goes down into the bottom of the case in order to make it all fit.
Custom PC: How long did it take you to complete this build, from start to finish?
Anthony: Once I had all the pieces, I was able to get it assembled within a day. The biggest time sink was working with my wife to agree on the graphics and color scheme. There aren’t many Christmas-themed Hello Kitty graphics out there, and a lot of what you find are low quality, or may have more pink coloring that doesn’t mesh with the red/white/green theme I was trying to create.
Custom PC: Are you completely happy with the end result, or do you wish you’d done some of it differently in retrospect?
Anthony: I’m very happy with the end result. Being able to get it made in time for the holidays, and seeing my wife’s face light up when she
saw it in action, made it all worthwhile.
Hello Kitty Christmas PC specs
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X at stock speed
- Case: Thermaltake S100 Snow Edition Micro-ATX
- Graphics card: MSI Ventus GeForce RTX 3070
- Storage: 2TB Corsair MP400 M.2 NVMe SSD
- Memory: 32GB (4 x 8GB) G.Skill Trident Z Royal Silver DDR4 3200MHz
- Motherboard: ASRock B550M Pro4 Micro-ATX
- PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA 850W G5 Gold
- Cooling: NZXT Kraken Z63 280mm AIO RGB liquid cooler, 3 x Corsair QL120mm RGB LED fans, 2 x Corsair QL140mm RGB LED fans to replace the stock fans on the NZXT cooler
The PC builder
- Name: Anthony Martino
- Age: 44
- Occupation: Professional poker player (PLO Cash Games)
- Location: Tampa, FL, USA
- Main uses for PC: Gaming and surfing the Net
- Likes: Roller skating, Dungeons & Dragons, Laser Tag and PC games
- Dislikes: Seafood, rude people, losing as an equity favorite in poker
We love your commitment to making a PC that will be enjoyed by your wife, Anthony – we’ve never seen a PC quite like it. You’ve completely transformed that Thermaltake S100 Snow Edition case into a festive Hello Kitty shrine.
Check out our best gaming setups guide if you want to see more outstanding custom PCs, and if you’ve built an extraordinary PC of any description yourself, then we’d love to see it! Join our Facebook group if you’d like to submit your own work for consideration.