What is the technique to create and island style terrain? It does not appear I can zoom out far enough to see the edges of the terrain to sink it (I'm probably missing a technique here.) Would I need to use an existing map and modify it? Any ideas would be appreciated.

If you want a flat terrain the start a new flat map.
If you want some randomly created hills with this, create a random level till you find a land mass that you like.

In either case when in top down mode. Zoom into the terrain and use the Shift and the terrain Shape brush to lower the terrain till it gets to the water plane.

Switch to the level tool and click in the center of the water spot. Zoom out as far as it will let you and increase the brush size with the + key this will edit more area at a time.
Choose the Stored Level mode brush, which will sculpt terrain to the last know height of the Level brush.

Paint all areas that you want water, leaving the part you want for the Island. then sculpt your island as you would like.

This is how it is done.

Hope that helps more

Yes indeed appreciate the tips.

It be awesome if we could raise and lower the water plane, like we could in FPSCx9 and FPSCx10.