I have a script done which uses the twitter lib to send a twitter DM.
I've tried a number of ways to include codes which render on iOS 8+ as emoji without luck.  Google has been unkind.
Examples:
msg += u'\xF0\x9F\x9A\x80' gives me no rocket.  I get a d with a line through the top.
msg += u'U+1F684' gives me the code not a train
As I can include emoji when I send a twitter DM to a user, the server clearly handles meta data pertaining to emoji.  As emoji is a UTF-8 character set rather than a font, I'm surprised that in the first example I'm getting representation in the font the twitter DM arrives in.  
How can I send such characters from python 2?
OK got it.  
msg += u'\U0001f468' gives me an old (white) man
msg += u'\U0001f468\U0001f3ff' gives me an old (afro-caribbean) man.
How to send emoji with Twitter Python lib