"What colour caparison?" Topic

I've had my family coat of arms produced very kindly by Geoff at CitadelSix, both for early Medieval in the form of shield transfers, and for my own retinue for WotR which includes livery and livery banners. Now the livery for the retainers in WotR comes out as yellow and black halves. My question is, does my caparison for my knight in the earlier Medieval period come out as white with ermine tails upon it, or is it black and yellow halves as well? The Personal Arms Banner for WotR is the shield design surrounded by a yellow and black border. I'm looking to produce a force for Lion Rampant in the earlier Medieval period, so would the rest of the foot figures wear white, black/white or black/yellow? Or is it personal taste and I can do as I like?

The caparison is up to you, though there may be predominant fashions in particular places and eras. Have a look at link for examples of the whole caparison being coloured as the arms, or multiple copies of the shield on a background of an unrelated colour.

It's actually quite difficult to say how the early (how early?) retainers would have been dressed, before livery coats became popular in the 14th century. See the last paragraph of link for what Ian Heath has to say about the early use of livery. I'd probably recommend picking a single colour for coats or surcoats, with hosen and all the rest non-uniform.

Thanks GurKhan. I dug out my figures just to try and work out what I bought, it's been about 2 years, and I must have had a bit of a brain storm because my commander is wearing a mid C13th helm, and all his mounted retinue are late HYW.

The Dukes of Brittany are a good example of ermine for a caparison.
For your arms, it could be in the right spirit to have multiple fleur de lys rather than just three per quarter

Thanks for the tip Swampster. Actually this was something like what I had in mind. I bought the sheets of ermine decals in anticipation.
link