absolutely em!!! i'll answer the blending question on twitter since it'll help to have pictures i think, but for highlights/bright lights... i'm starting to get the hang of it, but it's usually helpful to very faintly mark with a pencil where you want highlights to go before you start colouring. White ink/gel pen/paint is useful for detailed highlights right at the end (I use these especially for eyes, embers, 'shine') but if you wanna use colour, the alcohol ink won't sit right if it's not on the paper itself from experience. If the bright light takes up a large space then blending from a light colour into a dark one will generally look better than ink at the end. Although sometimes you do have to give a piece a lil tweak once it's scanned XD
Going light -> dark is generally a good shout - but specifically within a section you're working on. Since alcohol ink is much less workable once it's hard time to start drying, if you want to blend anything you have to do it whilst it's fresh. It's also better since once a darker colour starts to dry, putting a light colour on top makes it texture as the solvent pushes the pigment around - this can be useful for certain effects though! I can share examples of that too.