So this is my cat Jimmy, sleeping not on a table, actually, but a media switch. I just used the calligraphy tool to sketch his outline kind of quickly, then duplicated it and blurred the dupe just a little. Then I duplicated it again, flipped it so as to create a mirror image, and used the gradient tool to have it fade out for a mirrored effect. Under it all is a rectangle with a gradient applied to create a planar difference between the background and the table surface.
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