When you create a new base product that has an image in the full-size field, and then add a new variant template to that base item, Artisan will attempt to add the image to each variant.
Prevent Images from Automatically Adding
To fix this, you can delete the images from the variants, or replace them with the image you want for each variant.
To avoid this in the future, create the base product first — without adding any images. Save the record.
Edit the item record and connect a variant template to the base product (see the “Product Variant Template” pulldown).
Note: The product variant template must have the following checked off:
Add the image to the base product and save the record.
The variants should not have the image added to them.