You know that great feeling of popping a spot? You'll get that from Sophie Koko Gate's new animation

Sophie Koko Gate, an animator whose wobbling, weirdly constructed characters we tune in to watch time and time again, has made a new film with Adult Swim. The episode, explores love through a shiny pink naked character called Darcy – and fans may recognise him from his twin brother Marcy, form the animator’s films Half Wet and Marcy’s Tenderloin. Everything about Darcy, who “loves to live, but also lives to love,” makes you feel a little uncomfortable, from his deep voice to creepily long fingers – but in a loving way.

Following the brief of simply interpreting love, Sophie’s latest film opens Adult Swim’s Off The Air series, commissioned by Dave Hughes. Rather than animate her own feelings on love, Sophie explains she used the brief “as a study for a new character that I’d been thinking about,” she tells It’s Nice That. “I wanted to create a character that oozed a sort of ugly confidence, a quality that I find myself drawn to in all aspects of life.” As a result, the short is “meant to be a dating profile video set in a post-apocalyptic world”.

One of Sophie’s descriptions for Darcy literally hits the nail on the head for the vibe of her latest short, and maybe her style as a whole: “You know that feeling you get when you watch a pimple popping video and you want it to stop, but you can’t stop watching, and look for but more, secretly, when everyone’s at lunch and no one can see your screen?” Yeah, we know… “That’s the vibe I was going for with Darcy and this film.”

In a way, Sophie’s work is usually quite ugly – which she confesses is a quality too – but in the best possible way. ”I like the idea of realising and trying to own this,” she says, and she certainly is.