Elite Origami

Following the successful launch of Elite by Acornsoft in September 1984, origami expert Mark Bolitho was approached by his friend and Elite co-author Ian Bell to devise an origami model of the Cobra MKIII spacecraft. The idea was to include the instructions with future releases of the game. This was duly done but unfortunately the idea was not adopted by the game's publishers.

The matter remained dormant until the autumn of 2009 when an event celebrating 25 years of Elite was held at GameCity Squared in Nottingham, England. Origami instruction sheets for the Cobra were handed out to attendees and many completed models of Elite ships and space stations were suspended from the ceiling of the event marquee.



Image (c) Peter Taylor at flickr Reproduced under Creative Commons

Click on the images below to download a pdf of each object's folding instructions. The simplest one for beginners is the Escape Capsule and once this is mastered you can try your hand at a Cargo Barrel, a Cobra, a Mamba, a Sidewinder or even a Thargoid Warship!

Each pdf includes a printable sheet with the folds marked on it, so you have everything you need right here to construct your Origami Elite Ships!

Sadly Mark Bolitho passed away in November 2021. He was very gracious in granting me permission to offer his amazing work for download here and spent considerable time digging out his old ship designs. When we met briefly at GameCity Squared in 2009 he was a very friendly and approachable person. RIP Mark and thank you.