I just finished fitting my dress form based on what I learned at a class at the Novi Sewing Expo from Joe Vecchiarelli who does the fitting for "Dancing with the Stars" as well as a tip from the Craftsy class on "Patternmaking Basics" by Suzy Furrer. I have a fairly small budget, so I bought the dress form from JoAnn's when it was on sale before Christmas last year. I bought it in a smaller size so that I could pad it up. Joe Vecchiarelli starts with a smaller size, the one that fits the largest measurement, or even smaller if the person wants to lose weight. He uses 3 inch batting (regular polyester) for the waist and 7 inch batting for the hips. He uses a bra for the top and pads it. I started with my list of measurements from Suzy Furrer's class and padded the waist and hips to match. Then I had my husband help me do front and back measurements and side to side measurements to figure out how to distribute the measurement accurately. I used Suzy Furrer's suggestion to cover the whole thing with ace wrap to make it smooth, using one of the ace wrap clips to represent the naval. I plan to look more closely at the shoulders, but I think I'm fairly close to my dress form there except that the shoulders are wider than mine which I don't see that I can change. When I work with it, I dress her in whatever bra I plan to wear, and that so far has worked fine.
