Extract from Cinefex 45
PROTOTYPES
Attempts by Omni Consumer Products to develop a new and improved RoboCop are uniformly disastrous. The human brains selected are unable to reconcile their former organic states with their current mechanized ones.
Though he is haunted by the memories and feelings of his life as Alex J. Murphy, RoboCop was a resounding success as a law enforcement officer. In RoboCop 2, Omni Consumer Products attempts to repeat that success, producing two new and "improved" RoboCops - both of which prove to be dismal failures incapable of making the psychological transition from man to machine. The two failed prototypes were designed by Craig Davies and the idea was to show the progression from the original RoboCop to what finally succeeds as RoboCop2, also known as RoboCain.
In designing them, Craid Davies thought in the terms of what would be the most terrible thing to happen to a human being, and that ultimatelly led him to the two final designs featured in the movie. One was a head that had been chopped off and stuffed inside a diving bell, the other was a person completely encased in metal, with only little slits for eyes and a slit for a mouth and nothing more.
A tiny rear process screen was incorporated into the diving bell model, allowing an actual face to be projected in from behind for a shot of the distraught cyborg shooting himself in the head. It is a closeup shot in which his visor opens up and then he shoots himself. Phil Tippett photographed Davies face for the shot, and that is what was rear-projected into the model. The head of the second RoboCop prototype was constructed from a small plastic skull that was found in the model shop. Little white beads were painted and applied for eyes, and the top of the skull was then sawn off to allow a miniature brain and wiring to be inserted. The twelve-inch models were first sculpted out of clay, then molded in cast urethane with added armatures. The final stop motion puppet were then painted and given important details such as little wires before Craig Davies finished the work by airbrushed them to add highlights and shadows.
In the movie the entire scene is presented very much as a black humour joke, and the prototypes funny low-tech appearance were always intended to be a part of that joke. These failures were also meant to illustrate the fact that the technicians and scientists behind these new cyborgs didn't necessarily know what it was they did right the first time.