The Chess Players

I’ve had this sketch of a sort of robotic/automaton character with a really large coat, in one of my sketchbooks for a while now (the one in the top left). Today I was wondering what his friends would look like. His clothes reminded me of an 18th century dandy so I started by looking at that for reference. Then it became more and more about the hats, which I think were probably influenced by Moebius’ Arzak (since I was reading it just this morning).
In a world of hats, the only one not wearing one had to be the king.