It's best to practice the streaking -- or any other weathering technique new to you -- on a discarded hull. Like this old 1/144 SEAWOLF hull. My favored light colored vertical streaking medium is water soluble acrylic paints -- the cheap stuff you get from Walmart is just fine. Once dry, it's no longer water soluble!
Another test article for practicing weathering techniques and mediums before committing to an actual display model. In this case my old 1/96 DANIEL WEBSTER (I later sanded off all the gunk and that model is now scheduled for completion this year). Note the use of a right-angle triangle to guide the paint brush to insure perfectly vertical swipes of paint down the sides of the hull.
And here's the streaking technique committed to this 1/60 ALBACORE display piece. The streaking will be overstated, as you can see here, but that's fine, it will later be muted to some degree by vertical swipes of an air-brush loaded with black -- the final arbiter as to how prominent the vertical streaking will be before laying down the protective clear-coat.
Brushes are not the only tool you can use to lay down and maneuver weathering mediums. Experiment! Think outside the box. Fingers, rags, fiberglass abrasive brushes, abrasive air-guns, these and more produce interesting effects when pushing mediums around on the model.
The after portions of hull have been streaked. The forward areas are the same, but have been muted with vertical passes with a black loaded air-brush. This is how you control the density of the streaking.
Pre-muting of the 1/144 KILO sail.
Oil paints are also used for streaking. Particularly in areas where its impractical to come back with black muting with the air-brush, such as this paint streaking represented emanating from freshly applied hull numbers.
counter-shading to give the illusion of transparent dead-lights. Applying a clear gloss-coat over the dead-lights completes the illusion.
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