Hi,
The data of the images of the variants is definitely already loaded on the product page as the system already displays the images of the variants on it:
- if you're in "dropdown" or "radio" or "table" mode for the "characteristic selection method" setting of the HikaShop configuration, the images area of the product will be updated with the images of the current variant when you change the variant selected.
- if you're in "list" mode, the listing of the variants will display the images of the variants too.
You'll find the variants in $this->element->variants. Then, in each variant of that array, you'll have an "images" attributes which will be an array of the data of the images of the variant.