Unlocked: ‘Vertentes’ 16-Minutes Of Seamless Surfing And Self-Animated Artisanship

For the Greeks, Hermes was the “messenger god” who wore winged sandals so he could fly between the heavens, the earth, and the underworld.

We’ve heard Tomas Hermes’s name for a long time. The 36-year-old from Santa Catarina Brazil started competing on the QS in 2008. He eventually qualified for the CT in 2018 and surfed a full season before deciding to go out on his own and pursue other passions.

This decade of competitive battle is the kind of hot furnace that removes impurities in one’s surfing and distills it into gold.

Since leaving the traveling circus, Tomas and his very talented wife, Ana Romanio, have made a number of unique and artistic surf films together.

They are sort of like Bonnie and Clyde (Or Hermes and Aphrodite) if Bonnie and Clyde didn’t do anything illegal and instead made beautiful surf films and always looked happy.

This dedication to a creative path, which Vans has supported, can be seen in this film. All of the unique animation scenes in the film were created by Tomas himself, and stand out in sharp relief to other surf edits.

But, most essentially, Tomas just surfs really well. Whatever he’s done to develop his own sort of winged sandals, it’s working. He goes to the underworld (tubes), Earth (turns), and heavens (airs) in equal proportions and with equal skill.

Like Muhammad Ali combined anger with grace, so has Hermes been able to mingle power and dance.

We’ll have an interview with Tomas up on Premium soon.