Crying in cartoons

[Ando85]

Have you ever noticed that a lot of times on cartoons that the characters often cry out of the other side of the eye instead of the tear duct? Weird but interesting observation.

 

[Pinkamena]

Yeah, you're right. Crying is always depicted with tears coming out of the wrong side of the eye.

 

[Fappy]

I guess it'd look weird if it comically shot out from the tear ducts...

 

[Daystar Clarion]

What?

That's stupid, everyone knows that we cry like this.

 

[Muspelheim]

What do you mean? Each time I cry, there's two huge jets of tears flushing out of the outwards corners of my eyes in neat little arches to the ground. And my tears are light blue.

 

[DoPo]

But I don't have tear ducts on my eyes. I keep them next to my giant hammer - in my back pocket.

 

[game-lover]

You can tell where the tear ducts are???

 

[Kopikatsu]

You mean to tell me this isn't accurate?

I think I've been deceived...

It's funny that you bring up MLP:FiM, but they did provide an accurate depiction (To an extent, I guess) of crying in Hurricane Fluttershy. When Fluttershy was convinced to try flying again by the woodland creatures, she sucked the tears back into her eyeduct...which was right where it was supposed to be.

 

[Scarim Coral]

If you mean crying as being used as a comedical way, I guess the idea to make crying funny is that the tear shoot out like when you spray water out of a water hose.
Now picture that effect at where the tear duct (the inward part of the eye than outward used in cartoon?) is and I think that will result in water sparying at the person (in front of the crying person). Unless that cartoon is 3D it won't have the same funny effect, more like blurring the screen. So I guessing having it spray out of the side of the eyes is more funny to see due to better visual at the side (you can then see that the tear pouring is like water hose) than it is at the front.

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

You mean to tell me this isn't accurate?

I think I've been deceived...

What?

That's stupid, everyone knows that we cry like this.

These two images show how you usually see tears in cartoons, and if you'll notice it's not the sides of the eyes so much as the bottoms, as if the entire bottom eyelid is just one giant tear duct, and I'd say it's done mostly for comedic effect. I honestly can't think of anything that has tears coming out of the outside corner of the eyes. Can we get some examples, OP?

 

[Ryu-Kage]

If you don't mean the fountain of tears, like most people are talking about, then I want to guess that the tears forming on the outside of the eyes (away from the nose) are more likely just pooling there and haven't fallen yet. The tears might be coming from where they should be coming, but they travel to a spot where they can spill out more easily.

I might be wrong on this, but that's my guess.

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

Strangely enough while looking, I found more examples of "correct" crying rather than what you're talking about, although I know what you mean is common.

Spoiler: Crying Examples

---------------

---------------

Like Ryu-Kage said, I'm pretty sure they're just pooling under the eyes and dripping off the sides (example 3).
The fountain of tears (shown in the first example) is an animation principal called "exaggeration" to show that a character is really REALLY upset.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

If it's anime you are talking about, it's usually because the artists are lazy hacks whenever they are forced to work on a budget and a time crunch. Which is all the time.