Having finalised the layout of the 'bricks', I quickly cut out the rough shape of a front and back panel of a dress, as well as a sleeve, and roughly segmented them out to match the illustration. I noted which colour of fabric went where - I wasn't sure how well the colours of the illustration would show up on camera - to give me a rough point of reference once I'd drafted the bodice, sleeve and skirt blocks. I photographed these, pulled them up in my drawing software, and fiddled around with the contrast and length of the skirt to get a more accurate match to the illustration.
I dug out my old notes on drafting a basic bodice block (ignore the measurements on page 57, they're from 2022 and I didn't want to risk the final piece being even slightly ill-fitting, even though they haven't changed that much) and stuck that in, to keep all my instructions in one place.
I took all the necessary measurements for the entire garment - bodice, skirt and sleeves - to keep them all in the same place. The bodice block instructions draft to the hip, which I will be ignoring, partly because I wasn't sure whether I would have enough pattern paper to draft it, but mainly because this is covered by the skirt block and I will be joining the patterns anyway. I also decided on the length of the dress' skirt, measuring it from the waist. This should hit about two thirds up my calf.
Sleeve and skirt block instructions. I also put their required measurements here for quick reference. In terms of estimating how much volume I would add to the sleeves, I measured the rough circumference around my wrist I wanted the final sleeve to have - 50cm - then the widest part of my arm - 30cm - to come to a final increase of about 20cm. For the skirt, I want the bottom hem to be around 140cm. I will use these as guidelines when drafting the patterns, although I may not follow them strictly and they are subject to change.