I've thought about the idea of "subsurface scattering" with light bleed for a while now, and today I tried it out for the first time, and my results were successful!
A real-world example of subsurface scattering for those who are confused:
In Mine-imator (spotlight count: 9)
Image from behind
Here's the gist.
Knowing spotlight range directly changes the thickness of light bleed, I set up a folder rig with one spotlight with a very dark red hue and a very high range for very thick light bleed, then I simply duplicated it and lowered its range several times for a gradient effect. The dark red/orange colors stack on each other, giving a gradient effect.
A last spotlight is added with a low range as to not affect the light bleed. It's set to a blue hue to counteract the reds of the subsurface scattering.
QnA:
Download the test project HERE.
Important notice: your results may vary depending on your render settings. For the same results as the showcase image, you will need 15% blur size and 64 shadow blur quality.
Test project scaled by 8