spray painting case. Options

[Maccabee]

I just got a free computer off craigslist which I was happy about. the lady even gave me the receipt that said it was made in 02 and cost 1000 bucks. it is a p4 1.8ghz and 512mb of ram and a decent gpu. atleast good enough to use ubuntu special effects.

its funny cause she gave it away cause her nephew watched porn on it, and it got a virus so she thought it was trash. hahaha.

ok, now for the main point.

it is grey and has a blue plastic on the front and is really ulgy. and i want to spray paint it black.

I googled around, and every method involves hours of different sanding and makes it really shiny which i dont even really want. is there an easier way? and is it neccessary to reamove the inside if im only painting the outside? i was thinking i could just tape over any buttons or something, sand it once, and spray paint it. is this a good idea?

[mipadi]

The real reason you have to sand it thoroughly is not so it's shiny, but because spray paint doesn't stick to plastic very well -- especially the "shiny", finished plastic used on most computer cases. So you should at least sand it enough to get rid of the case's finish.

I'd also take out the components on the inside, because you will forget to tape up some hole or another, or you will do a shitty job taping up a hole, and you will get spray paint on the inside.