A coat of clear could probably cut the gloss a little - I mean clear satin/semi-gloss or maybe even a very careful misting of clear flat. Another thing to try would be to dry brush the whole model carefully with flat dark grey - that would cut the reflection from those all little details, like rivets. edges and so on, adding realism. Those two could also be combined. Hope it helps, good luck with your build and have a nice day
Here’s something else to consider, not all P-61s were black, and the ones that were didn’t take long to go flat and fade in the tropic sun, which believe me, can be intense. Also, the lower areas on the black aircraft would remain glossy longer because they were shaded by the rest of the aircraft.
If you have a good airbrush, here is what I do to simulate sun-faded and chalked paint. I put on a very light, transparent coat from directly above, onto the top of the model, of thin,flat white. The paint flow needs to be dialed way back so that the paint is just misted on. While it may be easiest to do with a double-action brush, I used to do it with my Badger 150 single-action by dialing paint flow with needle, way back. Then, I hit the top of model from a greater distance than my normal airbrushing. This should be done after decaling- it also fades decals. The dulling and chalking of paint should be greatest on top surfaces, quite a bit less on sides, and not at all on bottom surfaces. Leave the latter gloss black.
If you cannot dial your airbrush paint flow back far enough, you can use a flat medium gray, but you get best effect from very low flow white.
You can also add a drop or two of paint to your final clear coat. For me, the results have been much better than trying it as mentioned above…which would just give me tiny speckles when ya looked closely…it was good though, from a distance. “Tinting” the clear coat is very forgiving…takes a while to build up any color. I also do exhaust staining the same way…just add a drop of grey(or whatever) to your clear and slowly build it up.
There is Model Master semi-gloss black. Another possibility would be to apply a flat black and polish it to a semi-gloss finish. My polishing cloth is a brand-new never-worn pair of Fruit of the Loom men’s briefs.
