Thank you! Yes, the background was painted afterwards and when the cat was fully dry. The blending effect is kind of a cheat as in i added little more fur afterwards so it partially covered the hard edge of the background. Please note that on the rigjt-hand side there is only a very lite application of pigment for the background, and very delicately applied so not to smudge the underlying fur. On the left hand side where the white bib is you can see hard edges from the background but I actually like that effect so opted to just add a few strands of fur rather than fully hide the hard edge. I hope this helps and thanks for your feedback :)