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I am fairly handy with wood and consider building the bed cover from cedar used for ribs and cover with door skins or foam and coated with fiberglass and then painted.
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Others will have more opinion on diesel issues. Characterize 'fairly handy'; have you built a boat?
Consider plywood for the ribs and cedar for the skin. A friend of my built a egg-shaped house on a Ford flatbed truck back in the 70s. He made plywood ribs, ran light wood stringers and shingled the whole thing. When it was done he had it sprayed out inside with polyurethane foam. What was a wobbly structure turned into a solid block of foam with the shingles embedded in the outer surface.
Where he shingled it vertically like a stationary house, you could turn the shingles 90° so they lay like fish scales.
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Then there's the whole subject of that boat tail. Drop the tailgate and bungee a plank twice as long as the bed to the tailgate. (red flag, of course.) Drive around and decide if you can live with the extra length. The last 10-20% of that length will make about as much difference as folding in your mirrors. Even an 18" truncation will make some difference, and you could split it in the middle and have it open like cupboard doors.
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What's the use case? contractor truck, recreational, single-passenger commuter?