A little more steampunk

I did a little more work on my steampunk project. I darkened the background, turned the lettering into brass and dirtied up the metal (the edges are too clean though). I'm having trouble making the electrical pulses look less "adobe illustratorish" and more realistic. Tried the color dodge tool but it only works for solid bark backgrounds. Unless anyone has a tutorial they can point me to? I may just being it into Photoshop and apply the light motion there.