An alternative to the free downloadable templates by Nexus is provided by French website Modelsatracer.
They provide free to download, dress silhouettes with real and diverse proportions for fashion design, as well as providing guidance on rendering hair and fabrics. A great resource for starting to design on the figure.
Above are the backs of paper dolls cut from 1950's magazines so you get abstract patterns, text, photo's and recipes. This silhouette effect would be good to use for mood boards and source books either cut from printed papers or from fabrics backed with tape to prevent them from fraying.
The paper dolls would also be a good source of templates, people collect images of them and you can google or flickr your way to great archives and modern fashion illustrators interpretations of this historical fashion pass time. The above images are from Barbara Jean's collection
