A copyright infringment is a copyright infringement, but if one would start calling things with their names, so piracy and recasting are not the same thing as garage kits. There is an abysmal difference.
Garage kits are unlicensed subjects produced ia a very limited run, where limited generally means under 100 issues. Licensing characters could cost an arm and two legs, so people who is in love with those characters does his own take, issuing no more than 20/30 etc. copies. From a legal point of view, up to a certain number (do not remember if 20 of 25) it is considered as a craftsman work, not copyright infringement.
Recasting means taking whatever original piece produced (sculpted and casted) by someone else and reproducing it in a zillion run without asking to the rights owner and making (less or more) money. A garage kit producer sculpt his own work, a recaster simply take an already sculpted work and recast it. Even if you do not have a license for sculpting a copyrighted character, you always have your own right about your own sculpt. A recaster does not own any right about anything.
The worls of garage kits is based on comics and fantasy characters. Official releases (figures produced under license) are mass produced, generating a market which is the most important into the world of scale figures. In comparision, the market of historical figures is just a flea market. There are some limited (official, licensed) production of Marvel or DC characters which sells like the hell, it is not uncommon to see a limited edition of 1000 or 3000 pieces going out in a week, with prices from 100 up to 300/600 USD. They simply consider the world of garage kits as a medium to stimulate his own business.
Now the real question is: really do you think the world of historical figures is so different ? Almost every producer (manufacturer) has something in his own catalogue, let say "remembering" (...) a 2D drawing or a piece resembling the one from another producer. Borrowing original concepts from the well known Osprey tables is something usual. But there are also a lot of figures based on original paintings and a pletora of less or more inspiring sources never mentioned or publicized. Would you like to speak about the work of some of well known masters out there reproducing 'historicals' 2D artworks (let say mainly native indians, napoleonics and so on) and selling his unique pieces for thousands of $$$ ? So if one produces and sells a copy of a Don Troiani Native American is an artist, while producing 20 copies of Captain America is a piracty act ?
Nobody speak about it, and in the meanwhile the 'historical' manufacturers does a mass production of unlicensed characters, from comics, from fantasy, from Osprey, Don Troiani, from all. If that piece had been another (unlicensed) indian or napoleonic based on whatever 2D drawing, sure you would have seen a chorus of Uhuuu! Whooa! Beautiful art!, but being an "Hellfighter" subject the first thing coming into your mind is just piracy...
