creating a unique animation that can change with variables

Howdy,

So the the answer to this question has always eluded me.

Let's say you have a row of figurines, and when you select one, you want it to behave as if it were grabbed by an invisible hand and bring it up close to the camera.


When you grab a figurine, imagine what it would look like if you grabbed something by the top. Initially, the top of the figurine (in this case a cylinder) would initially tilt towards the user (or camera), the way you would grab a chess piece may be a better example. then as your hand gets closer and your elbow starts to compress, the arc shifts down and the object reverses tilt, and the top starts to even out or even tilt away from the user as if something was resting in your hand.

So, as you grab each figurine, the tilt along the arc is the same and the end point is the same. The key differences are the start point, the length of the arc, and the break point (the point where the arc changes from positive slope to negative slope). How would one go about creating this animation such that it does not matter where the figurine is?