RE:
Pause button?
Haha hearing me sigh from over there? Oh boy xD
As much as we trust all of you guys to not take advantage of a pause button ^^:, we are much more concerned about the CAS experience itself that might brake. In our eyes, the time-limit is a big thing that shapes the sessions and gives you as an artist a lot of advantages.
It makes you less picky about your ideas, helping you to just throw your idea out there (crap or genius) so you can learn from what you've made.. instead of not drawing anything at all because no great idea popped up. The time-limit gives (us) a rush that is so intense that it can be a kind of addicting. The time-limit also makes sure you really finish something so you won't get strangled in that feeling that you'll "finish it later", only to give yourself the time to get less satisfied with your work and evidently never really get to a conclusion. Finishing a session means finishing a (small) project, so you can take a step back and learn from it or let it go. This is of course how we see it, you can agree or disagree and we're curious to your opinion!
In our eyes the brutal-ness of the time-limit adds to that experience. Adding a button to extend or pause the time that you've chosen will drastically soften that experience, taking away a lot of the advantages.
What we do agree with is that you learn a lot more if you have no direct time pressure! And we see this happening a lot on CAS, people doing a paintover on their own art to improve/finish and learn from it. That's why we're currently extending this feature so you can upload a "Rendered" version of your piece near the description section, which will stand out more than a regular paintover. We hope that this will encourage people more to learn from their own session's result and finish it to a worthy portfolio piece!