Trying to paint Object Source Lighting

Or OSL for short ...

Since I really like spaceships I thought it would be a good idea to try this out on one of the new spaceship miniatures I got as a gift from one of my friends. 

The aim was to paint the model so that it looked like the light from the interior of the ship was giving a glow on the outer hull. 

This is one of the fantastic looking models included in the Dropfleet Commander boxed set. Since I'm still deciding on a fitting colourscheme why not use it to experiment with this OSL technique. 

The model has tons of windows (or at least I like to imagine almost all of the recesses are windows of some sort that are a light source), so ideally suited as a test.

The most beginner friendly way of getting the OSL effect was to use drybrushing. I started with painting all of the recesses/windows with a bright yellow. Several thin coats so the colour is very vibrant. Not really minding if some of the yellow spills over to the hull.

Next was drybrushing the black on the hull, being careful not to push too hard on the brush. When there was even coat of black over the hull I started to mix in white paint and drybrushed several times with a progressively "lighter shade" of black, but not going so far as to make the hull looking grey.

This left a rather dusty look on the model so I gave it a coat of black wash .... not smart, because now I had to repaint all the yellow in the recesses with my smallest detail brush. This took a long time and needed several layers to get the yellow back to a vibrant colour. I did use this step to add a very fine line of pure white in the center of the largest recesses/windows. 

Then I very lightly drybrushed yellow over the hull to mimic the light shining out of the windows. To finish the model I painted the engines and weapons silver, the center of the engine exhausts I painted blue and wet blended white in the middle to make it look like very hot plasma. A small part of the hull I painted red with a very fine highlight of red mixed with white so that it looks like a symbol or ID-marking. Some smoke effect on the base to give the idea it's flying through some sort of nebula was the finishing touch.  

Quite pleased with the result, but still a lot of learning and experimenting needed!