Concept Art

Radioactive Software

This image was created to illustrate a possible zeppelin aerial combat game set in a Steampunk fantasy world.

Schell Games

Pitch Illustrations

Preliminary thumbnails for a mock-up character customization screen.  I wanted to suggest the story that you create your robot character in an orbiting hangar bay before heading to the planet's surface.
The finished product!  Concept user interface by Whitney StCharles.  Car model by John DeRiggi.  Car texture by Zach Coe.
For this, we attempted to combine an exciting mood piece with hints of possible level design.  See below for a detail image.
I tried to convey the necessity for platforming, swimming, climbing, and other action-adventure gameplay oriented features.  Thoughts on quest progression were also taken into account.

Jelly Kingdoms - iOS

The game is a cartoony, stylized take on the Chinese epic Romance of the Three Kingdoms.  Each environment is designed to side-scroll in three layers of parallax: foreground, middle-ground, and background.


The first level of the game: The Farm Village.  Here, I tried to incorporate Chinese aesthetics (spiral clouds, tall rounded mountains, flared rooftops, and rice paddies) into an overall cartoony presentation.
A bamboo forest in which our Hero encounters a horde of bandits.
The capitol palace ransacked and seized by the crooked Courtiers.
The outer courtyard of the final palace. 

WDI Imagineering

The Sum of All Thrills

This project involved a touch-screen interface and 3D ride simulator experience at Innoventions pavilion in Epcot Center.  Guests would design their own roller coaster (see the User Interface section) and then ride it on a simulator.  A mathematical/sci-fi/futuristic/friendly feel was desired, but there was no pre-existing IP to consider.
Numerous iterations went through approvals, trying to establish just the right style of architecture, style, and space. 
I played a lot with the notion of having mathematical forms (tools and symbols) embedded in the architecture.  This one used the Ruler, one of the tools utilized in the Design Station experience.
This loosely used a protractor and a compass.
Hearing that they wanted a roller coaster to travel through a futuristic city, art direction gravitated toward a friendly Blade Runner feel.
Another iteration based on the Blade Runner aesthetic, though trying to be slightly friendlier.
It was judged that Mega-Cities felt overtly dystopian, so the direction to have more of a "Washington DC" monument feel came down.  This was the final approved concept.
The jet environment started off in a more urban setting a la the Red Bull stunt jet events.  This would have also allowed for a lot of asset reuse between the other urban environments.
A canyon was eventually chosen for the jet environment.
Final jet environment concept.
Final bobsled concept.
Given our heavy reliance on asset reuse (aka kit-bashing) I made a few style guides for the level designers to piece together interesting and consistent structures.


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Hello and thank you very much for checking out my work! My name is Ben Chaney, and having held numerous different titles over 11 years in the video game industry, I've come to like "Story Artist" the best. Here's why. I've designed characters and environments. I've written scripts and created storyboards. I've cast voice actors and directed their performances. I've guided teams of creatives and collaborated with all sorts of voices. I've built fictional worlds, crafted their stories, and published my work for the world to see. It has been my privilege in life to call this my profession and work with others who feel the same about theirs. So please! Take a look at some of the things I've done. Maybe we can tell a story together.  
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