Hello,

I'd like to use Vault Boy for a school project (non-commercial, educational only) and add it in my program. I want to use it as a state-indicator or guide, so it can express the state of the program by showing its feelings. (example: Program has an error, the Vault Boy is angry... etc.)

Should be ok. Non-commercial, internal publication for educational use. Knock yourself out.

For a personal use project that you are not profiting from, go for it. Good luck with the project.

They cannot stop you, even if you wanted to do a painting of a pip boy and sell it, there are no laws against things like that. Hell you could do a portrait of Todd Howard and sell it and he couldn't do a thing about it. Art is like speech, it's free (to an extent). As such it is actually covered by the same laws as freedom of speech. You cab paint anything you want.

Um no. Copyright laws mean that if he tries to profit from someone else's copyrighted material he can be sued for it.

Why not the vault girl?

Yeah I think I got a bit carried away there!!

There are many grey areas. If you directly copy an image there are infringements if you try to profit from it. But people (lots of people) have been selling paintings of cartoon and video game characters online, some of them for years without getting in trouble.

Fan Art is a big thing now, someone on Deviantart has written quite a good guide on the subject.

http://kirawra.deviantart.com/art/The-Truth-About-Selling-Fanart-212570726

Having said all that, the OP just wanted to know for a school project, as far as that goes there are absolutely no laws stopping you from doing whatever the hell you want. Otherwise everyone I went to School with would be in a lot of trouble. As would most people who have ever been to school!!!