Is acrylic paint water resistant?

Acrylic paints have many advantages, one of these is that once dry they are water-resistant. This may seem a little bit strange considering they are water-based. You may even be wondering how they work? or how do you clean them off if water does not affect them?

Acrylic paints are water-based. This simply means that the dry paint pigment uses mainly water to become a liquid that can be painted onto something. During the drying process, the water evaporates and the paint once again becomes a solid. Because water is good at evaporating the paint can attach itself to its new home (a model for example) very well and very quickly resulting in a permanent finish that reapplying water to will have little or no effect.

This is great if you want to paint layer upon on layer because you do not have to wait long for the previous layer to dry before you can get to work on the next. It is not so great if you want to remove the paint. When acrylic paint is still wet, removing it is easy and it will simply dilute by adding more water until there is nothing left. Once dried you will need the assistance of some sort of alcohol-based solvent. There is also growing evidence on the internet that soaking your model (minus its electrical parts of course) overnight in good old fashioned Dettol will soften acrylic paint (without damaging the plastic) enough so that it can be removed easily. You can also use some model paint stripper.

In summary, acrylic paint uses water to become a liquid, can be diluted to make washes and diluted further to clean it away altogether, but, once dry it is waterproof, contains no water at all and water will not wash it off. And don't forget, it dries really fast!