I wanted to add an addendum to this, to pass on something I learned about painting acrylic.
I decided to make another one of these, but when I painted the acrylic It cracked badly. I thought I was using the same paint as before, but it turns out not. below are the two cans of paint. both are rust oleum; The one on the left causes the cracking, the one on the right does not. Further below is a photo showing the result of using the two different paints on the acrylic. The top piece was painted with “rust oleum metal finish“ paint. The bottom piece was painted with “rust oleum specialty metallic“ paint. Huge difference.
