Thanks for explaining it so well! This is basically the reason. Also, I initially didn't expect each route of Banana Ranch to be this long (I wanted it to be shorter than Seiyuu Danshi's route, but it ended up being much longer instead 😅). The CG count for each route is bigger too (SD has around 14-15 CGs per route iirc while BR has more than 20), which causes the artist's workload to be bigger too.
For a small dev, it is actually *very* common to work on multiple projects at once. Even during SD development, I had asked the artists to start drawing for other games when they no longer had task to do for SD, I just didn't announce it back then (and those games unfortunately ended up not getting continued). For Baradise Escape, I'm fortunate enough to get the artist currently working full time for me, so I keep commissioning them for new art now (at a scary rate for like ~15CGs per month) . Unfortunately, art costs money so I have to quickly finish the Baradise Escape demo to gather funds for further commissioning (otherwise, I'll just keep the project a secret project like I usually do lol, because people tend to assume the worst 😅)
Baradise and Banana have different artists, and I still keep commissioning art for Banana Ranch CGs as well (unfortunately at a slower pace due to artist not working full time). It's not like I can ask Baradise's artist to work on Banana Ranch's CGs, their art style is totally different 😅
Anyway, my current plan right now is: Work full time on Baradise Escape demo until 17th March, and hopefully by then Finn's CGs are mostly completed, and I will then switch gears to work full time on releasing Finn's route, then switch back and forth between the two projects like that. If the CG production for Banana Ranch takes too long, I might try hiring additional CG artist (though it can be hard finding reliable artists that are willing to draw 18+ and match art style ^^;)