FreeGameDev

will dpmodel (.dpm) better choice for preformance?
is it compiled to byte code or just packaged SMDs into one file?

darkplaces use it
https://github.com/xonotic/xonotic/wiki/Dpmodel
https://icculus.org/twilight/darkplaces/files/

can ioquake load it?

No and no. There's no tags and no LODs in DPM. I don't think there's even any weights and 12 years ago DPM was considered not recommended in DP itself also.

I'm not changing to other formats.

There are weights in DPM format (the "influence" field in brush_dpmodel.h).

I would also not recommend using DPM, even with Darkplaces. A project I was involved in started off using DPM for the player model, but we had an issue with parts of the mesh "sagging" and nothing we tried could fix it (and I looked pretty hard for the problem). We switched to IQM format and the problem went away.

Something I don't mind everyone to see. new armor models


The green one's a bit underdesigned and would go in a redesign anyway (also green armor is not going to be implemented, it's a spare model)

Definitely needs more Mankini

Nice painterly style though, you are still doing the skins in Blender?