How can I achieve the mirror-like colored metal effect, of Jeff Koon's tulips/balloon dog sculptures?

I study industrial design, and for this semester's final project, I found it interesting to try and achieve the look of Jeff Koon's balloon dog sculptures. If someone can tell me, that something like that can be achieved through priming/air painting, painting polished mirror-like metal, so that it's light reflecting properties remain unchanged, but instead of being silver it's red, yellow, etc, or if it's just impossible to achieve through normal relatively inexpensive methods available to a college student, I would really appreciate it.