Media advice please! Urgent!

[soiled undies]

Okay so I'm building this TARDIS giftbox for my friend's birthday and I'm slightly conflicted when it comes to using which media.

I'm torn between spray paint and watercolour. The structure itself is made of a white color corrugated cardboard, the visible corrugated edges of which I will be coating very carefully and smoothly with normal A4 paper (COPY PAPER? SACRILEGIOUS!) also to remove the minor grooving due to the corrugation. It is roughly 17-20cm tall

I would prefer a matte finish, nothing lacquer or glossy which is why I thought of watercolour. PS, was planning to use watercolour paint that isn't severely watered down, so the pigment is stronger.

I was hoping if anyone new the finish of graffiti spray paint on paper, is it matte?

Pros and cons of each media so far from myself at least

Watercolour:
cheaper (Almost half)
definitely provide the finish that I'd like

May be blotchy
May/may not cause warping (clarification please?)
Difficult to consistently paint the whole structure evenly


Spray paint:
Convenient to use, quick
won't warp (if managed properly i.e. from a suitable distance in short bursts of paint)
provide more even coating

unsure of finish (please help ; A ; )
more expensive


EDIT:
A little extra bit because I'm so darn excited with this project:
My friend is superwholocked so her gift will be the concept of one fandom on the outside, three on the inside.

Opening the tardis which is bespeckled in glow in the dark aqua paint and fitted with a blacklight LED light source for quick charging will reveal three drawers, each of which will contain an item in relation to each fandom.

Supernatural?
Dean Winchester's pendant (mmm, Dean)

Sherlock?
a little magnifying glass pendant for sleuthing around

and of course, Doctor Who
A mini tardis pendant! In case she wants to carry one around and can't fit this one in her bag.

[Lychee Fruit]

Oh - spray paint, definitely. Watercolor gets its name because it's water soluble. If you paint something with watercolor, you can wash the paint right off with water. It would be impossible to clean the TARDIS once you finished it - and if a drink or something spilled around it, that would be the end. Avoid tempera and poster paint as well! That stuff turns into powder when it's dry.

If you really want to paint with brush, buy acrylic paint instead. Just like watercolor, it can be cheap or expensive, high or low quality, but unlike watercolor, it's a permanent paint once it's dry. And if you want to layer up with transparency, you can add water to the paint while it's wet. The paint will still be permanent when it's fully dry.

If you're not completely happy with the sheen of the paint, you can experiment with a matte spray finish, but even those usually have a faint "shiny" appearance.

[soiled undies]

Lychee Fruit

Oh - spray paint, definitely. Watercolor gets its name because it's water soluble. If you paint something with watercolor, you can wash the paint right off with water. It would be impossible to clean the TARDIS once you finished it - and if a drink or something spilled around it, that would be the end. Avoid tempera and poster paint as well! That stuff turns into powder when it's dry.

If you really want to paint with brush, buy acrylic paint instead. Just like watercolor, it can be cheap or expensive, high or low quality, but unlike watercolor, it's a permanent paint once it's dry. And if you want to layer up with transparency, you can add water to the paint while it's wet. The paint will still be permanent when it's fully dry.

If you're not completely happy with the sheen of the paint, you can experiment with a matte spray finish, but even those usually have a faint "shiny" appearance.

Very informative perspective, thank you <3

Would you happen to know the kind of finish spray paint would have on regular paper?

[Her Highness Snow Knight]

Maybe acrylic or tempra paints would work better? But I would take the spray paint over the watercolor, the water color is likely to warp the cardboard...

[soiled undies]

NegativityOutlet

Maybe acrylic or tempra paints would work better? But I would take the spray paint over the watercolor, the water color is likely to warp the cardboard...

yeah but I don't like the sheen sad

Thanks though. Do you happen to know the kind of finish spray paint would have on paper?

[soiled undies]

halp halp halp

[Eizoryu]

ugh sargasm

Do you happen to know the kind of finish spray paint would have on paper?

I don't know if it accounts for much, but spray paint primers I've used on wargaming models always dried matte (they were matte paints) on the cardboard/paper I would put under the models. I would imagine any spray paint labeled "matte" would dry matte on the surfaces it's supposed to be used on. 3nodding

[soiled undies]

Eizoryu

ugh sargasm

Do you happen to know the kind of finish spray paint would have on paper?

I don't know if it accounts for much, but spray paint primers I've used on wargaming models always dried matte (they were matte paints) on the cardboard/paper I would put under the models. I would imagine any spray paint labeled "matte" would dry matte on the surfaces it's supposed to be used on. 3nodding

I was actually looking at graffiti paint or all-purpose.

I'm assuming because the paper is porous it would just automatically dry matte, but I don't want to take any chances. The graffiti paint did say it had a matte finish so I would probably go with that. Thanks though smile