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you can find books on drafting patterns in the library and book stores; that's how i started; it is also good to have basic sewing books to make sure you can understand the elements of sewing and dress... i have gotten several at half price books.
i also researched the history of garments (for renfaire stuff) b/c if you know the history of draping and construction, it is easier to follow the evolution of dress and what construction and materials make a fabric lay the way it does (very important when working off old paintings... oh, and making regalia patterns was much easier than elizabethan gentry!)
after that, it was up to a lot of experimenting w/ cheap fabric to get the basics down (another idea is to have basic shirt, dress, etc. patterns so you can look at them, copy neckline and armhole construction, etc. onto your garment-- i have this one button up shirt pattern i picked up for a dollar that has lent parts of its construction to two dozen garments!).
Oddly enough, i found that the research i did on historic turkish clothing helped a lot in drafting a tear dress b/c of the similarities of construction (all squares and rectangles, gussets).
a simple way of making a pattern is 'draping'-- essentially making a ppl slipcover. you use a dressform or the person, and start draping and pinning the fabric to the shape you want, then mark the lines, remove it and sew it.
hope this helps!
-d
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