The Thing (1982) RJ MacReady cosplay and props (as screen accurate as humanly possible)

[OutpostPilot452]

Hello fellow fans of The Thing and RJ MacReady's costumes and props.

This my first thread/post of my own and I'm very new to all this so please bare with me.

I thought I'd share some of the items that I've manage to collect since I decided to let my hair and beard grow long and cosplay as MacReady

Having awesome people such as MorbidCharlie help me with hard to make/find items has really been hugely appreciated and pushed me to really try and make my cosplay one of the best and hopefully admired by all you MacReady fans. So, here goes..........

1. The first thing I found were a French made pair of glacier sunglasses which are identical to the Vuarnet glasses but have no brand on them.
I'm not to fussed about the Vuarnet logo not being on them as there's shots in the movie where MacReady is wearing a second pair of glacier glasses without any logo on them

 

[OutpostPilot452]

2. The Gloves.
The gloves have taken me the best part of six months to track down and what's really annoying is that they have no brand/makers tag on or in them so finding another pair as a backup is probably impossible

I followed in MorbidCharlie's footsteps and found a pair of Castre gloves which needed the cuffs altering to leather and I'd stripped them of the insulated linings and was getting ready to convert them when I found the screen accurate gloves. They were just advertised as black leather motorcycle gloves but the blue lining caught my eye and I checked all the details with screen shots from the movie and that sealed the deal. The Norwegian's also wore the gloves as did most of the cast and crew. The blue lining is always the big give away

 

[OutpostPilot452]

3. The safety goggles.
I bought a couple of pairs of generic goggles but after closely watching the movie again, I wasn't happy with the shape of the lenses and the ventilation hole layout and amount of them.
So I searched again for hours and hours and I found a clear picture of the Norwegian wearing the exact same goggles as MacReady (just painted black). I counted the holes on them and matched them to a vintage pair of goggles. The goggles are made in the States but no brand name is on them so again like the gloves I'm annoyed that I can't search for the brand and get a backup pair but I shouldn't complain too much I guess

 

[Bacta]

Awesome finds so far! Looking forward to seeing more updates!

 

[OutpostPilot452]

Awesome finds so far! Looking forward to seeing more updates!

Thanks, I'll be posting some more items soon

 

[OutpostPilot452]

4. El Capitan's gun belt and holster.

Hunter Company 138 belt with octagonal buckle and 25 loops for the .38 Special cartridges.

Hunter Company 1100 series holster with safety fastener located at the back over the trigger guard of the Colt Trooper Mk3 with 4" barrel.

These are what I believe to be screen accurate.
The holster is actually for a 6" barrel gun not the 4" barrel so don't look for the 4" holster if you want screen accuracy.

These were pretty easy to find on Ebay.

The inert .38 Special cartridges were sourced from a seller in the UK on Etsy

 

[OutpostPilot452]

4. El Capitan's gun belt and holster.

Hunter Company 138 belt with octagonal buckle and 25 loops for the .38 Special cartridges.

Hunter Company 1100 series holster with safety fastener located at the back over the trigger guard of the Colt Trooper Mk3 with 4" barrel.

These are what I believe to be screen accurate.
The holster is actually for a 6" barrel gun not the 4" barrel so don't look for the 4" holster if you want screen accuracy.

These were pretty easy to find on Ebay.

The inert .38 Special cartridges were sourced from a seller in the UK on Etsy

5. El Capitan's Colt Trooper Mk3.

A guy in the UK 3d printed this for me and then painted it to the best of my abilities but I'm fairly happy with how it turned out for my first try.

 

[OutpostPilot452]

6. The microphone

Although it's not really part of my cosplay I thought I'd share my find.
I searched for vintage cassette recorder microphones and manage to find 3 of what I believe to be the exact microphone MacReady used. The mics were part of a joblot of electrical items and cost quite a bit but I can't complain too much having found 3 of them and all.

 

[Vandalia]

3. The safety goggles.
I bought a couple of pairs of generic goggles but after closely watching the movie again, I wasn't happy with the shape of the lenses and the ventilation hole layout and amount of them.
So I searched again for hours and hours and I found a clear picture of the Norwegian wearing the exact same goggles as MacReady (just painted black). I counted the holes on them and matched them to a vintage pair of goggles. The goggles are made in the States but no brand name is on them so again like the gloves I'm annoyed that I can't search for the brand and get a backup pair but I shouldn't complain too much I guess

I am soooo glad I found this thread! I would like to add that I have done this very same thing, counting all the holes to find the goggles. I hope this isn't too late, the brand is American Optical (AO) but the specific type of goggles is Sure-Guard. I bought a pair hoping to make the Norwegian's goggles, as coming to the realization that the classic Norwegian goggles were just some masked-off airbrushed green safety goggles, really just puts into perspective that a lot of these props are just... path of least resistance.

 

[Vandalia]

2. The Gloves.
The gloves have taken me the best part of six months to track down and what's really annoying is that they have no brand/makers tag on or in them so finding another pair as a backup is probably impossible

I followed in MorbidCharlie's footsteps and found a pair of Castre gloves which needed the cuffs altering to leather and I'd stripped them of the insulated linings and was getting ready to convert them when I found the screen accurate gloves. They were just advertised as black leather motorcycle gloves but the blue lining caught my eye and I checked all the details with screen shots from the movie and that sealed the deal. The Norwegian's also wore the gloves as did most of the cast and crew. The blue lining is always the big give away

I must say that I am utterly blown away by these screen accurate blue-lined gloves, such an incredible find. I hope to be so lucky.

 

[OutpostPilot452]

I am soooo glad I found this thread! I would like to add that I have done this very same thing, counting all the holes to find the goggles. I hope this isn't too late, the brand is American Optical (AO) but the specific type of goggles is Sure-Guard. I bought a pair hoping to make the Norwegian's goggles, as coming to the realization that the classic Norwegian goggles were just some masked-off airbrushed green safety goggles, really just puts into perspective that a lot of these props are just... path of least resistance.

 

[OutpostPilot452]

Have you got any pictures of the holes on the sides where the straps attach?

 

[Vandalia]

Yep! Threw in some of the reference pics I used too.

 

[OutpostPilot452]

That's great work, they look perfect.
I did find a set of AO goggles with a black plastic rivet and the holesdidn't match up so I quit searching AO goggles.
Is AO printed on yours anywhere?
Are you US based?

 

[Vandalia]

I am US based, and AO isnt printed anywhere on it explicitly just "ES Z87" and "Made in the USA"

 

[OutpostPilot452]

I am US based, and AO isnt printed anywhere on it explicitly just "ES Z87" and "Made in the USA"

I'm UK based and finding items in the US can be a pain sometimes, especially when sellers won't ship abroad.
So maybe the goggles I have are AO too?
What other parts of the outfit do you have?

 

[Vandalia]

I've been trying to track down the exact clothes worn by MacReady and co. and a signifigant portion of the film revolves around long johns... Where the crew is quoted as wearing all size large. The brand is explicitly shown in one of the scenes. Duofold Long Johns. And MacReady wears both a pair of longies, and a longsleeve duofold shirt as well seen throughout the movie. So I managed to snag a period accurate size large on Ebay a couple months back, still trying to find a proper fit to me for the "longies" pants however as size 42 is too big for me I think... you can actually see part of Mac's longies stick out when he bends down to check on Bennings (note the red line). Photos of both Longies and scene provided as well.

 

[Vandalia]

Never thought I'd obsess over a characters underwear before

 

[OutpostPilot452]

I've been trying to track down the exact clothes worn by MacReady and co. and a signifigant portion of the film revolves around long johns... Where the crew is quoted as wearing all size large. The brand is explicitly shown in one of the scenes. Duofold Long Johns. And MacReady wears both a pair of longies, and a longsleeve duofold shirt as well seen throughout the movie. So I managed to snag a period accurate size large on Ebay a couple months back, still trying to find a proper fit to me for the "longies" pants however as size 42 is too big for me I think... you can actually see part of Mac's longies stick out when he bends down to check on Bennings (note the red line). Photos of both Longies and scene provided as well.

Yes, in the deleted/ TV version of the movie you see duofold. I've been looking for them recently, Pm me if you want to sell the large set?

 

[Vandalia]

I'm attempting to put together my own MacReady so I'm happy with my size large Duofold, but lots of NOS Duofolds show up on ebay, there is an XL from the same seller I bought the Large from, not 1000% "lore accurate" I say lore accurate instead of screen accurate because we only ever hear them say everyone pretty much wears size large.