My suggestion is for you to buy yourself Full Busted by Marta Alto DVD, and also the book Fit for Real People written by Pati Palmer ad Marta Alto - a much cheaper option. Then learn how to do a FBA (full bust adjustment) and also follow Marta as she demonstrates how to tissue fit to a human being - this is where having a willing friend to help you helps no end. The beauty of the DVD is that you can play it and stop it as many times as you want, and I often work alongside Marta in this way copying what she is doing, and believe me I have a very peculiar shape indeed. Marta uses real people to tissue fit her patterns on and of course makes it look so easy, and because I was so fascinated with this I wanted to buy the patterns that she actually used - not all of them, only the ones I particularly liked, however most of them were out of print. So with great difficulty I scoured the DVD for the actual pattern numbers, and then set about looking for those that were factory folded and uncut, and bought these via the internet mostly from the USA.
Once you have all the equipment you need to start following Marta, given time you should be able to take any pattern and do a FBA where necessary and any other alterations. The beauty of this is that the Palmer Pletsch people produced some patterns for McCalls, and on the pattern envelope they had printed Palmer Pletsch, and on these patterns certainly from the time around producing Fit for Real People there were extra lines already printed on the pattern tissue where you cut in order to do the various alterations. I found this a great help. Initially I thought Oh I can do that this way and do not have to bother about getting certain things - I have learnt the hard way. (I had tried using pattern tissue from old patterns that I no longer wanted - a great big mistake!!!)
Now a couple of years ago now, the Palmer Pletsch people updated their Fit for Real People and their new book is called The Palmer/Pletsch Complete Guide to Fitting not cheap, but well worth the expense, however either of these two books will help you no end. They have also published along the same lines, Jackets for Real People, Pants for Real People, and Knits for Real People.
I am also a great believer in making a toile every time I choose to make something new, for me it is worth it, and the calico is not wasted I can always find a use for the different shapes for other things.
If you choose to go down this line, I can let you have the pattern numbers of some of the patterns that you could look out for, at the very end of the DVD Marta tissue fits two older ladies who are both rather well built and needed multi alterations.
Since I started doing these FBA's I have now padded out my dress form to suit me, and to achieve this I have a calico bodice that fitted me and I was happy with this and I have stuffed her out so that the calico is a tight fit - thus this gives me the ease I would need to be able to breathe. I was originally wrapped in brown paper parcel tape mixed with glue with the result that when it dried it was hard, and this is fitted over an old dress dummy, again padded out to stop any wobbling, and it is so useful to be able to pin fabric to her and note the alterations that I need to do. I have quite a few plumb lines of thick string curtain weights hanging from the stand so that I can feel these through the fabric and yes it works.