I developed it while experimenting with my PanOceanian starter. What initially inspired me was the official scheme for Acontecimento, painted by Angel Giraldez:

I wanted to get something similar in terms of colors and feel. But at a less time cost than Angel's display-level paintjob.

I structured my process around two surfaces: clean shiny metal and cherry-brown plates. Then the process was as follows:

1) Basecoat — Grey

I cover all areas with basecoat of VMC Neutral grey. I also use the same color for different gadgets and other metallic stuff on the model. For example, here you can see the same grey on her sidearm and comlog.

2) Highlight — Light grey

Then I do a very rough highlight with Citadel Celestra Grey, aiming at edges and pointy bits.

Please note, this isn't "edge highlight". I'm applying paint quite liberally during this step, not trying to create thin accurate lines. It would (and should) look crappy at this point.

3) Highligh — White

And then some white (or almost white) blobs with VMC Offwhite. Again, no need to be precise, just splash some paint here and there.

If you get nice and clean result at this stage — you're doing it wrong. It should be messy. Otherwise you're likely drifted into accurate highlights and edge highlights, and you are not speedpainting.

4) Washes

Now, the magic happens. I wash normal metal parts with Citadel Nuln Oil (black wash), and cherry-brown parts with Citadel Nuln Oil + Citadel Baal Red (black + red washes). This is what happens at this stage:

This step is crucial for the process to be a speedpainting one. The wash will soften rough highlights underneath, shade the recesses, give depth, and add tone on that cherry-brown panels.

Depending on the consistency, you'll need 2-3 coats of wash at this stage.

5) Light sources

If you're painting sci-fi weapons, there would be this optional step. I like to paint some light sources on futuristic weapons, since that reinforces the theme.

Here I use simple 3 layers process: basecoat with Citadel Wild Rider Red, then highlight with Citadel Wild Rider Red + VMC Offwhite, then a dot with pure VMC Offwhite. On smaller light sources I simplify this into just two layers: Wild Rider Red and a dot with Offwhite.

Here's the result:

Of course, we are not anywhere near Angel's display-level. But we also spent probably just 1/10 of the time.

Also, this process won't give you any realism or crispness. But it's time cost / efficiency ratio is, I believe, superior to most alternatives.

You can vary the amount of wash layers, which will give slightly different results. Here I've done some testing on couple of models, note the difference in cherry-brown tone:

And completed squad, which you could also have seen in other articles:

Doing weapons with this process costs around 15 minutes per model on average.

Which, again, won't fit if you're trying to be under an hour. But is fine if you're OK with 1-2 hours per model bracket.

You can simplify the process and speed it up to 5 minutes per model, skipping highlights altogether. Final result would be worse, but still decent for tabletop-level painting.

I'm serious about that skipping part. First iteration of my Haqq army was painted that way. And I'm still happy with how it looks on the table for 45 minutes per model:

So give it a try, and please share with a wargamer in need, who should paint some weapons and finally stop playing unpainted: