This animation debacle has become such a shit show. Here he is saying that his animator is busy with his own personal work plus Gumdrops work, and then he's not even going to work with him going forward in the future. Dude, at some point you have to look at this, and say "Fuck. This isn't working." Cut your loses, and implement animations in a later update when you have a "local team member".
This is where his Patreons could exert their power by voting with their wallets. You want this update to be released? Cancel your pledge. Make that 8K drop down to 500 dollars. The update would be released TODAY... finished or not. But, it's not happening.
But hey, if they're happy with some still images, and some artsy-fartsy dialogue every 2-3 weeks for another year... more power to them. I got off this ride long ago.