How do I animate real emotion when it's still beyond my skill?

You can already do the work most people never learn, and now you're standing at the edge of the hard part, the shots that have to carry real feeling. That the nuanced performance is still beyond your reach doesn't mean you lack the gift. It means you've arrived at the exact place where the craft gets deep, and that takes time to grow into. Emotion in animation isn't a trick you're missing. It's built from watching how real people move when they feel something, then rebuilding it frame by frame. The animators you admire got there by studying life closely and failing at these same shots many times before they landed. The gap you feel is the normal distance between competent and moving, and it closes with attention, not talent alone. Pick one short, emotional moment and study it obsessively, real footage, your own face in a mirror, the timing of a real reaction. Then animate it, get notes, and do it again. You grow into performance by reaching past your current range on purpose, one hard shot at a time. That reach is exactly how it stops being beyond you.