Saying ''exactly the same face or outfit'' doesn't even make sense. No one could sculpt someone's face exactly or have the clothes exactly right. Every company that sells any licensed merchandise doesn't have it exactly lol. Doesn't matter if the nose is slightly off or the outfit doesn't match up exactly, it's still copyright infringement.
Yeah, you can sculpt, paint and draw these characters all day long but as soon as you profit from it, it's illegal and copy right infringement.
It doesn't matter if you claim it's your interpretation. If that was legal to claim that, every company would do it and name the character ''Iron Guy'' and have it look just like Iron Man but claim ''I sculpted it, it's my interpretation''. They would be sued and they would lose. Chinese and other bootleg companies can skirt by and do it because they can't be sued because China's horrible policies.
You can sculpt them all day long but when you're selling them as that character and it has a strong resemblance to said copyrighted character, it's illegal. Hell even rip off characters have gotten people sued into oblivion. Captain Marvel was a rip off of Superman and DC comics sued and won and the company in charge of Captain Marvel had to stop all production.
It's even technically illegal to sell fan art. Those are people interpretations of the character and it's still illegal but the bigger companies don't usually go after the little guy....until they do.
No matter what your opinion is on the subject being right or morally wrong, it's illegal. Look what happened with Sideshow recently on this very site. They were telling websites affiliated with them that they wouldn't tolerate these sculptors selling characters that didn't hold the license to said character. Sideshow Collectors tried to comply but to many custom threads and ect caused Sideshow to step away. Now I think Sideshow were being *******s and I don't agree with their way of thinking because these third party companies and customizes are what makes this hobby shine but they were technically right, it is illegal. They have to pay a fortune to buy the copyright to characters and it sucks for them that other people just sell it and don't have to worry about that.
So not matter what you're feelings are, rainman and the other sculptors that sell these figures are doing it illegally the second they profit off of it. Most of them are located in other countries and skirt the law. Does not matter if the faces aren't exactly the same or the outfits. Hell, most sculptors don't get the outfits exactly right and they sure don't sculpt the face exactly right, that's impossible.
here is just one google search about it. Either way, I'm done with this subject because it feels like I'm saying the same exact thing and people are still posting saying it's legal when it's 100% not. Just learn the copy right law and quit speculating. I mean I thought it was common knowledge. Either way, I'm done with this subject.
https://www.google.com/search?ei=Tr...i71j35i39j0i20i263j0j0i67j0i22i30.GgB_YdtEiUA