Hey guys! So as it turns out, animations are a very quirky thing. I've gotten it figured out but lots of fine-tuning and testing is involved. The exciting news is the progress I've made confirms a whole field of opportunities for my future mods and I'm extremely excited to get to work on that! Unfortunately because it is a bit more intensive, I'm not quite ready to show what I really wanted to.
What you see above is a very, very basic and vague tease at what I want to actually show off. The concept is functionally complete and now I'm just working on an accompanying animation that won't horrify you. ;) I hope to have the real post ready very soon.