Vault Boy

Vault Boy is an advertising character for the Vault-Tec corporation within the Fallout universe, appearing in their manuals and training films. In the Fallout games, Vault Boy is used to provide an iconic representation of the perks and stats available to the player character. In appearance, he is a young male cartoon character with wavy hair (Brown in earlier appearances, blond by the time of F3) wearing a vault jumpsuit. His design pays homage to 1950's style mascots.

Because Vault Boy has become a mascot character for the entire Fallout franchise, he is sometimes referred to as Falloutboy or Pip-Boy.

Vault Boy or Pip-Boy?
Vault Boy should not be confused with Pip-Boy which is the name of the (virtual) personal information processor used as the game interface in Fallout, Fallout 2, Fallout 3 and Fallout Tactics. Made by RobCo, this device has its own advertising mascot shown on the Pip-Boy 2000 interface in Fallout and Fallout 2 (with pointy ears, red and yellow jumpsuit, red hair). The 3000 model, created under a Vault-Tec/RobCo joint-venture, does not feature RobCo's own mascot.

While the name of the Vault-Tec mascot (round ears, blond hair, blue and yellow Vault jumpsuit) is not present in the actual original games, according to Leonard Boyarsky and Tim Cain, he was always referred to as Vault Boy or Fallout Boy, not Pip-Boy. The misconception stems from the fact that the developers of Fallout Tactics (MicroForte) confused the two and called Vault Boy "Pip-Boy" (which even ended up confusing Chris Avellone when he wrote his Fallout Bible). The makers of Fallout 3 returned to the original name - Vault Boy.

Appearances
The Vault Boy appears as a representation of perks and stats in all games. He also appears in a Vault-Tec commercial on TV in Fallout intro, in Vault Dweller training movie in Fallout 2 and as a joinable NPC in a special encounter in Fallout Tactics. He also appeared in Run Like Hell (a game that was also made by Interplay) on candy bars called PipBars.

Vault Boy Bobbleheads appear in Fallout 3, while a Vault Boy hand puppet appears in the official Penny Arcade comic.

Behind the scenes
The character was originally designed by Leonard Boyarsky and then drawn for Fallout by Tramell Ray Isaac. Brian Menze was responsible for all new Vault Boy images in Fallout 2. The Fallout 3 images of Vault Boy were drawn by Natalia Smirnova.