Vault Boy

Vault Boy was unnamed in 1997's Fallout, although the game's instruction manual refers to the character as Vault-Man. He was created by Leonard Boyarsky, who originally thought of him as the "skill guy" when he developed the character's first piece of concept art. Vault Boy was partly based on Rich Uncle Pennybags' aesthetic from the Monopoly board game, and Boyarsky came up with the idea and design for the Vault Boy “cards”, which is intended to evoke the feel of Monopoly cards by showing the character engaged in a variety of activities in humorous ways. Vault Boy was drawn for Fallout by George Almond for the first few cards and by Tramell Ray Isaac who finalized the look of the character. The character is inspired by films made during the 1950s, in particular the cartoon character Bert the Turtle from the 1952 civil defense animated live-action social guidance film Duck and Cover, and parodies the dualities of cheery optimism and sub-surface paranoia from that era. Orman's favorite illustration of the character from Tactics was for the special damage effect of "immobile", where he still wears a "happy, devil-may-care grin" even though his body is horribly mutilated. ==Description==

Vault Boy is the mascot character of the Vault-Tec Corporation, also referred to as Vault-Tec Industries, appearing in their adverts, manuals, products and training films. Although Vault-Tec's slogan, “revolutionising safety for an uncertain future”, suggests a company with people's best interests in mind, it is consistently portrayed as an unscrupulous corporation. Vault Boy is presented as a young male cartoon character, dressed in a blue and yellow jumpsuit, with blond hair styled in a distinctive swirl. His default expression is a wide beaming smile, but has been shown to make other facial expressions as well. His signature pose is to stand with a hand extended in a thumbs up, sometimes with one eye closed. The character's in-game function is to communicate information to players: for example, he is used to represent the player in Fallout 4 perk tree menu, or in a video explaining the SPECIAL character statistics system. Vault Boy also appears in illustrations for achievements and trophies for the video games developed following Bethesda's acquisition of the Fallout IP. Vault Boy is sometimes presented as a female equivalent, Vault Girl, who is also blonde and wears similar attire. In 2015's Fallout Shelter, Vault Boy's distinct art style is employed for the randomly generated Vault Dwellers which players manage in the game. In the 2024 Fallout television series, it is implied that Vault Boy is based on actor Cooper Howard, portrayed by Walton Goggins, who was the original face of Vault-Tec advertisements before being replaced with the Vault Boy mascot. ==Cultural impact==

featuring Vault Boy and the Vault-Tec logo at Gamescom 2015 Critics noted that Vault Boy has achieved a level of cultural impact and viral recognition outside of the character's original context, which was not anticipated by former Interplay staff such as Tim Cain and Feargus Urquhart during the franchise's early years. This is in spite of the fact that Vault Boy is not a character the player can encounter in the Fallout universe. Jeremy Peel from PCGamesN claimed that Vault Boy, as a mascot for the series' "sardonic, faux-1950s imagery", has become "as recognisable as Mickey Mouse". A fan theory about Vault Boy was that the character's signature pose is a discreet method to determine whether an individual is within the fallout radius of a nuclear explosion and thus safe from radiation or otherwise. Upon the release of Fortnites Chapter 5 Season 3, Vault Boy appeared in the battle pass as an emoticon performing a variety of facial and hand gestures. ==References==