This ALWAYS kills me. Does anyone else struggle with this? I have no problem sketching out a pose.....rendering out the face. But then, when it comes to designing an outfit for a character, I always struggle. I'm like "shoulder pad there....ehhhh...naw too cliche. Kneepads there....naw......FUCK....GODDAMMIT!!!! *paint over and over and over".

*Enter mass frustration.........close photoshop.

Do any of you guys have advice on how to beat costume block? It drives me insane!!

When in doubt, add more belts.

(Also, reference material relevant to the genre of the design)

Digging through fashion websites, particularly the ones that feature the weirder haute couture typed stuff is often handy for getting ideas.

I know this feel. It seems like everything's been done already. And then you realize that yes, it HAS all been done before, then you enter this downward spiral of downloading all 8 seasons of the Office and eating large amounts of ice cream.

Perhaps you should download something with more interesting costume design.

If you look at the fashion design catwalks, they have all this crazy kind of designs, that NO ONE will ever wear, because you are right, everything has been done before. You should try and keep it simple and put some criterias, like style, color, decade, and then try look up reference. Remember, its all well and good to make something completely different, but it shouldn't be so different that people can't relate, so pull from already existing styles.

Costume design is a discipline all to itself and needs special specific attention and study by the artist just like learning anatomy or architecture. In a perfect world you would have a fashion designer working along side a character concept artist. (I remember vaguely that many Japanese studios like Square having a separate character and fashion artist)

I've seen many concept artist who concept clothes without any real fashion knowledge or background. This leads to a extremely shallow overall design especially if they design females.

A famous artist from Korea, Olivia is a good example of a character artist who takes fashion design and study seriously.
Her blog/inspiration
Cghub page