@JuanluGC - thanks for the response. I started a new thread because I looked through the showcase and couldn't find anyone doing it.
I have already built an example or two showing the "classic Final Fantasy" angle of characters, which is ... hard to describe. But, side scroll from the side and front and back. Generally if a character walks diagonal, they use one of their four cardinal direction animations for it.
My interest is in actual isometric (the second screenshot). I don't expect any major secrets, but was hoping to find anyone who had done / tried it to share techniques and ideas on how to keep the production hours down and where to start!