The TL;DR is: If you know what you're doing, you've built your own PC, your PC has sufficient cooling, and you keep it clean, sure! If you don't know what you're doing, and or haven't built your own PC, don't know how well it stays cool, and don't keep it too clean, it's best you don't.
As for a longer answer, here's my own experience, having been enough of an idiot to do it myself with a figure I genuinely like...
About a year or two ago (early 2021), I got the first figure I'd ever put in my PC - a 1/12 scale painted figure of Maple in a swimsuit.
Why this figure specifically? Because Maple as a character resonates with me - she's a singer, she can play a guitar, she has a nice sense of fashion, and it just so happens that her accent color is my favorite color already. And maybe also because it only costs $70, but that's besides the point.
Not long after I purchased it, I placed it in my PC. At the time I still had a hard drive cage installed, forcing me to place the figure right below my GPU - which may have potentially affected the final results, though I don't think it really has changed the results much.
Above is around March 2021 - the figure is in my PC besides the drive cage, as I had yet to replace my internal backup disk with an SSD installed behind the motherboard tray.
For some context, my specifications then & now are:
CPU : AMD Ryzen 3700X
GPU: ASUS ROG STRIX GeForce RTX 2070 (non-super)
RAM: 2x8GB 3000mhz (later added a non-matching 2x8GB 3200mhz kit that currently runs downclocked - it was a gift from a family member who didn't know that I actually needed two pairs)
SSD: 1TB NVMe XPG GAMMIX (i don't recommend this btw, mediocre speeds for the price)
PSU: EVGA 600W BQ 80+ Bronze Semi-Modular (also don't recommend for this config, fan gets noisy under about 50% load)
HDD: WD Black 1TB (later replaced with a TEAMgroup 1tb SATA SSD that's installed behind the motherboard)
PCIe add-in: Hauppauge WinTV HVR-2255 (later replaced with a Hauppauge Colossus 2 after the WinTV card seemed to randomly die)
CPU Heatsink: bequiet! Dark Rock Pro 4
Fans: 2x bequiet! Pure Wings 3 14cm (rear & top exhaust), 2x Deepcool RF140 (front intake)
From March 2021 to today, my PC experienced many workloads - sometimes it ran F@H, sometimes it was running a game, sometimes it was running a Blender render, sometimes it was rendering videos, sometimes it was ripping DVDs or CDs, sometimes I just left it running all night doing nothing because I fell asleep while taking a break from my PC. A lot of the time I used it for heavy multitasking, and if not, making music or playing games, or just sitting on my ass watching YouTube.
The GPU in my PC is set up so it doesn't run the fans until the GPU is above 55c - making it stay off unless I record/stream/game for a while. My room is never above 85 degrees Fahrenheit whenever the PC is on, and usually I keep it below 80 degrees. Sometimes I've turned my room's A/C off while I'm gone for an extended period of time, as my PC is off as well as my monitors (speakers) - in such a case, it is possible that my room's temperature might've exceeded 85 Fahrenheit, but it has never reached or exceeded 90 fahrenheit at any point between early 2021 & today, even in spite of the fact that I live in California.
Every week or so, I'd take the filters off the top & front of my Rosewill RISE case & clean them, and every few months or so I would fully blow out dust inside the PC. I'd also clean the figures by hand when doing this. I used to only clean my PC once a year when I built a system without a side window, but I began doing it every few months after I built my PC in this case, especially after adding the figure.
Around October in 2021, I removed the hard drive cage & replaced my old backup hard drive with an SSD behind the motherboard tray. This primarily was because every 15 minutes when my backup ran, the hard drive would spin up - which always distracted me, because my PC was otherwise quieter than my own breathing with how I configured my cooling in it. But it also let me place a 2nd figure inside later on, as well as move the swimsuit figure elsewhere.
Upon Christmas Day in 2021, I was gifted the aforementioned pair of RAM sticks. These were on my Amazon wishlist & are a set that sync with ASUS's AURA Sync API. I ultimately had to decide if I wanted to run mismatched sticks, or just run slightly faster RAM. I decided to just run mismatched sticks - it was easier & gave me more room for more applications.
About a year later, I got another figure - a Pop Up Parade figure of Maple in her La Soleil shop outfit. This arrived in April 2022 & as of initially writing this post, still sits in my PC.
At this time I hadn't noticed any discoloration in the swimsuit figure, so I felt it was safe to still leave it in my PC & also add another figure. Analyzing this now, I think I see exactly what unfortunately was wrong - her head was rather close to the GPU, which ultimately was the hotter component in my PC due to the fact that the GPU's airflow exhausts air onto the side panel.
Now, fast forward 6 months. I've kept the filters clean, and I'm taking my PC outside once again for cleaning. It's now October 2022, almost 2 years after I put the swimsuit figure in my PC & just used it for my usual day-to-day tasks. This time, I open the case to remove the figures & see a worrying sight on the swimsuit figure I got early 2021...
I looked at the figures before fully cleaning them, and noticed the hair
on the swimsuit figure appeared to be discolored... At first I thought
it was probably just me not realizing the exact differences between how
GoodSmile & Pop Up Parade figures are painted. But I then compared the figure to the box I got it in, and yep, sure enough, it was discolored slightly. Has a slight green tint to it that isn't in the picture on the box.
Ultimately, I'm not too upset about it. This was my own doing, and I knowingly went into this with no hard conclusion on what could happen. I already knew the melting point of PVC - my PC's components do not reach 85C even under a thermal torture test, they remain around 70-75C (around 70C max in winter, 75C max in summer). So I figured I was fine. But what I forgot to research on before I placed the figures in my PC, was if the paint on the figures could potentially be affected by the heat.
Actually, hell, a quick admission of guilt: For a long time, I didn't even realize they hand-painted these figures, and just never took into account how the paint could react to heat. When I started, I only took into account how the material the figures are molded from would respond to heat.
Now that I see the discoloration on the swimsuit figure after almost 2 years has passed, I've decided to remove it from my PC to prevent any further discoloration. I'm not removing the shop outfit one unless it displays similar symptoms after a while - it's much closer to cold air than the swimsuit figure, I expect nothing at all will happen as a result, as I don't think the heat of the GPU under intense workloads will even touch it.
So, what can I conclude from this? - how could this be avoided?
If I had built my PC in a larger case, or better yet, installed a custom liquid cooling loop with the radiators exhausting air directly out of the case to ensure there's no hot ambient air in my case, this probably would've never occurred. Hell, if you're reading this because you're thinking of adding figures to your PC with a custom liquid cooling loop, and no part of your loop exhausts air into the case: you probably can get away with adding PVC figures to your PC without any problems!
But of course, I despise liquid cooling with a passion, because of its increased complexity, points of failure, potential damage that can be caused by failures, increased starting cost, required maintenance, and often the fact that the results are comparable to having cheaper massive heatsinks instead.
For a few FAQs to end off this blog post:
1. Jar it!
A: That's not a question, and your mind is fucked up. I can't get it to fit in a Mason jar, and even if I could I have absolutely no desire to.
2. What the hell is with your obsession with catgirls?
A: Not your damn problem. I was raised by cats & can meow like one, of course I'm going to fantasize about an ideal future where the same is true of my hypothetical ideal wife. Better to be a happy virgin fantasizing about the future, rather than living in the present & forever being a doomer, y'know? ✨
3. Why did you even do this in the first place?
A: Because not many do this - it's a part of my own unique style. The warmth of the color orange, the softness of a hairy tail, the cutesy appearance of kitty ears on a human head, the absurdity of expensive pieces of purely decorative plastic inside a PC, all form my ideal blend of simultaneous peace & comfort, yet my flavor of fun & chaos. And on top of all this, because it ultimately went wrong: I get to be the first to publish my mistakes online, so hopefully others learn from my failures the easy way & avoid making the same mistakes in the first place.
4. What about (other material type) figures?
A: The only other material I've put in my PC is acrylic. Acrylic will pretty much never warp inside a PC because of its high melting point. I don't know about the paints that might be used on acrylic figures, but if you just have flat acrylic prints like I do, the only case where those will be damaged whatsoever is if your PC somehow catches on fire - basically, don't buy a no-name or Gigabyte-branded power supply & you'll be alright. I don't know how other materials or even paint types will fare in these same conditions, I only have one PC & I only care enough about one girl to have bought figures of them.
5. lol u coomer, u got the swimsuit one!!!!!!
A: Again, not a question, but I got it for less than $100. Can't complain about a good price. I wish I could've just gotten one of her in the casual outfit, but apparently they don't think anyone wants that for some reason... And besides, if I were a legitimately perverted person, I'd have the figure of her overly slutty sister instead LOL
6. What are you doing with the figures in your PC now?
A: The swimsuit figure is being removed & placed in a display case instead. I'm just going to pretend that it's a slightly older Maple where her hair's faded a little, and that this entire story of mine just never happened. The shop outfit figure will stay in the PC until I notice something wrong with the colors on it, in which case, I'll do the same as I've done with the swimsuit figure & also pretend it's a slightly older Maple where her hair's faded.7. Do you not take shame in what you do?
A: If I did, I wouldn't be doing it in the first place. I quit that bullshit of being addicted to bad feelings long ago, and have no interest in going back to that.
End of post. Stay foxy y'all.
