You might like drawing and have always been doing it or you might be new to it and it might be a bit daunting but fear not you do not have to be Picasso to be a designer but you do need to be able to draw your idea clearly so that it can be brought to life. Eg: You need to be able to tell whether it is a man or women :P
Learn how to draw the female and male figure first for adults and children. Then start drawing!
Basics: Once you feel you have the hang of drawing the human form start adding clothing to it. It is quite like drawing for Fashion Design but more fun. You need to learn how to draw clothes too, to be aware of the way clothes fall and the creases they make as this will add to your design and make it more realistic to be able to picture the character in it.
I would suggest picking a character then try to draw a costume design for that character. Here is a little exercise to get your started.
Exercise one: Pick a character. Do not give yourself anything too hard to deal with for now. Draw the shape and form of that character first, lightly with a pencil. Then start to draw a basic costume. When you have this done it would be a good place to start manipulating that character (not literally) but start re-drawing the form and shape with say one arm up and keep changing the shape and form of the character while re-drawing the costume so that you will learn to see how things take shape on a design for a costume.
Exercise three: You have the basics now lets take it up a notch. Give yourself a harder challenge, Try to draw a detailed sketch of a character with a detailed costume. Eg: Frodo Costume from "The Lord of the Rings".
Exercise two: If you feel like you are getting the hang of this great! Take it up another notch.Try drawing a really detailed costume design, use Marie Antoinette for inspiration as this is quite complicated. This will teach you all about folds in fabric and small details that can make all the difference in a design. If you can draw this then you are getting good.
After these exercises you need to repeat this over and over. I am not suggesting you become a good designer by copying other costumes designed by other costume designers as this is just to practise your drawing skills.
Your next step is making your own design now for a character.
Exercise 4: Take Marie Antoinette for an example. Imagine you got a job on a production and this was your main character. Start using your imagination and try to come up with your own design for this character remembering not to veer off track. Do your research on the character. Click this link to find out more about this, A Great Costume Designer is only as good as their research. You need to know what clothes the character was known for, the era in which they lived, their status, their personality, research other designs and most importantly do not get the fashion wrong from that period in time, everyone will notice and it will make you look bad. You should really know all you can about this character is they have a history and then you ready to create a great design while fully understanding what the character is all about.
Take a wide variety of characters and try to draw them. You should take a story, script, play or film and try to design all the costumes for each character and each scene this will give you a great insight into How to become a Costume Designer. It will also look great in your portfolio that you are able to design for a whole cast. Keep practising as we all know practise makes perfect. You can find more links on the steps involved in becoming and being a great costume designer on my blog.
You should check out this book A History of Costume for inspiration and period costume aswell as patterns from these periods so that you can attempt making a period costume in the future.
Happy Sketching!
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