During development, the vascular endothelium becomes covered by mural cells (MCs) – vascular smooth muscle cells or pericytes – that are essential for vascular stability and homeostasis. MCs are known to be of mesodermal or neural crest origin, but little is known about how they are recruited to and cover the vessels – primarily because live imaging of this process has been challenging. Now (p. 1328), Shigetomo Fukuhara, Naoki Mochizuki and colleagues overcome this hurdle by developing transgenic zebrafish lines to mark MCs fluorescently. They then use these tools to follow the origin and subsequent behaviour of MCs in both cranial and trunk regions of the embryo. The authors find that trunk MCs are mesodermal in origin, while both neural crest and mesoderm populations contribute to cranial MCs. MCs appear to be recruited to specific vessels, such as the dorsal aorta in the trunk or the basilar artery in the head, and then migrate using inter-endothelial cell junctions as a scaffold to cover other vessels – preferentially the arteries. As well as providing important insights into MC behaviour, the tools developed here should serve as a valuable resource for the community for future analyses of vascular development.