In doing so, you’ll be able to spray a professional paint job at home while meeting the laws of the paint police. Paint Anatomy 101. When it comes to Low VOC paint options, you have two main choices: solvent-based (acrylic urethane) or waterborne. To understand the difference, you simply need to know the basic physical make-up of automotive paint. Automotive paint is made up of three parts: the pigment, the binding agent, and the carrier agent. The pigment is essentially the color. The binding agent is the chemical that typically bonds the pigment to the vehicle’s surface. The carrier agent is tasked with suspending the pigment until it is applied to the surface via the paint gun. Once the paint dries, the carrier agent evaporates into the atmosphere.