Sorry if I came across badly. To me, concept art implies that it is intended to be used as the basis for modelling. But there is no harm in creating it. As for inspiration? Idk. Just Google some stuff.
Not sure what your intentions are but here's some of the high poly models that we still have created by Don Megel (Source files kept in assets_source repo, for anyone that has access): Someone might find this info/images useful... Spoiler: NF Boat - Click image for full size image. Spoiler: NF Stingray - Click image for full size image. Spoiler: NF Beast - Click image for full size image. Spoiler: NF Arnaud Amaury - Click image for full size image. Spoiler: NF LT - Click image for full size image.
The ones I posted are the only original high poly versions that were kept in the dev assets repo. No BE models unfortunately.
Because apparently most of the Empires community run the game on a calculator and we don't know what model detail options are...
People should try to remember empires is like 10 years old or something, even if you had money back then a nice setup only gave like 30 fps on like a old crt monitor...
Maybe my post wasnt clear. It was written above the images. I'm pretty sure these are all Don Megel creations.