I actually tried myself. I made the flagshader 75% translucent, addes some subsurfacescattering, made the box on which she lies glow. And I did lots of test renders. It did not reach the level of the example, but I needed more time, that I did not have. I guess. The blurred effect you describe is sometimes a question of tiny bump on the translucent material. There is a thread about blurred transparency somewhere in this forum, regarding a DVD case. Good luck!