Missile Launcher: Vintage G.I. Joe Mega Marines Blast-Off
Rifle: Vintage G.I. Joe Battlecorps Dr. Mindbender
The Rest: Marauders Task Force Parts

Brace yourself for Battlecorps Hardtop. You may need to turn the brightness down on your device. The idea for this kitbash started rattling around in me brain after seeing a road crew in my neighborhood. I thought a road-crew-inspired G.I.Joe would be fun.

With the idea of a road crew Joe in mind, I felt the Hardtop character would be most appropriate. I had a hard time figuring out what his job within G.I. Joe could be, but then I thought he could maybe be something like "Battlefield Procurement", which is a fancy way of saying he runs around stealing any abandoned or immobile Cobra weapon platforms or vehicles for some of the Joe sub-teams like Night Force, Tiger Force or even Sky Patrol.

Okay, with the character fleshed out a little, I needed to move to figure design. Primarily, I wanted a figure to look like he fit into the Battlecorps lineup. Typically that means neon, day-glo colors, some type of outlandish and nonsensical tech feature on the body, and, of course, a huge missile launcher, ideally also in nose-bleedingly bright colors. Just like the Hasbro G.I.Joe design team in the 90s, I would forego any sense of real world military aesthetic. I figured I would make Hard Top decidedly blue-collar.
With that idea in mind, the colors on the vest are obviously safety-related. The white T-shirt is typical of a blue-collar character and the light blue pants are meant to evoke jeans. As luck would have it, I had an extra AVACs hard hat in my parts bin. Battlecorps Hardtop is clearly a garishly loud kitbash in the vein of Eco Warriors Outback, Cyber-Viper or Mega-Viper, but the colors throughout the figure originate from the vest. Plus, I wanted to see if I could still use my years-old Citadel Orange bottle.